Rescheduling Marijuana: The Time Has Come

Eric Blair

The Controlled Substance Act of 1970 legally classified drugs based on their potential danger to users. The most dangerous of all known substances were labeled Schedule 1 drugs, which are defined as having potential for high abuse (highly addictive), no recognized medical benefit, and that there is a lack of safety concerning use of the drug.

Marijuana, now legal for medical use in 17 states and Washington DC, still remains a Schedule 1 drug alongside heroin and LSD. However, it is now obvious to everyone but the Feds that marijuana does not belong in the same category as heroin and should be rescheduled.

Because both Congress and the president ignore this issue like the plague, marijuana is unlikely to be rescheduled in the near future. Yet, that doesn't mean that it can't happen quickly as all it would take is a stroke of the president's pen with an executive order. 

NYPD Sued Over Stop and Frisk Marijuana Arrests

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Phillip Smith
Stop The Drug War

The Legal Aid Society in New York City announced Friday that it had filed a lawsuit against the NYPD over its continuing practice of making misdemeanor marijuana possession arrests when they order suspects to empty their pockets during the department's controversial stop and frisk searches. Police Commissioner Raymond issued a memorandum last fall directing police not to make the arrests, but only to ticket pot possession offenders, but police continue to charge people with misdemeanors, according to the lawsuit.

"It’s certainly a sad commentary that the commissioner can issue a directive that reads well on paper but on the street corners of the city doesn’t exist," said Legal Aid’s chief lawyer, Steven Banks.

Under New York state law, marijuana possession is decriminalized, but public possession remains a misdemeanor. In New York City, police order suspects to empty their pockets, then charge them with public possession if a baggie appears.

Ron Paul Says Legalize Marijuana (Video)

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Lawmakers to introduce bill to legalize marijuana

A group of US representatives plan to
introduce legislation that will legalize marijuana
© AFP/File Luis Robayo

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A group of US representatives plan to introduce legislation that will legalize marijuana and allow states to legislate its use, pro-marijuana groups said Wednesday.

The legislation would limit the federal government's role in marijuana enforcement to cross-border or inter-state smuggling, and allow people to legally grow, use or sell marijuana in states where it is legal.

The bill, which is expected to be introduced on Thursday by Republican Representative Ron Paul and Democratic Representative Barney Frank, would be the first ever legislation designed to end the federal ban on marijuana.

Connecticut: Lawmakers Vote To Decriminalize Adult Marijuana Possession

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Paul Armentano, Deputy Director
NORML

Connecticut lawmakers moments ago voted 90 to 57 in favor of Senate Bill 1014, decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of cannabis for personal use by adults. Senate lawmakers had narrowly approved an amended version of the measure on Saturday; House lawmakers concurred with the Senate today, sending the measure to Democrat Gov. Dannel Malloy — who will sign it into law.

As amended, SB 1014 reduces the penalties for the adult possession of up to one-half ounce of marijuana from acriminal misdemeanor (punishable by one year in jail and a $1,000 fine) to a non-criminal infraction, punishable by a fine, no jail time, and no criminal record. (This measure would similarly reduce penalties on the possession of marijuana paraphernalia.)

Uruguay To Legalize Marijuana Cultivation and Possession

Activist Post

Uruguay may once again prove to live up to its official motto of "liberty or death."  Already considered one of the freest countries in the world in terms of economic and political liberties, the Uruguayan government has agreed on draft legislation that will legalize possession and cultivation of marijuana for personal consumption.

According to the national newspaper El Pais:

The initiative, to be approved Tuesday 26 April by the Deputies thwart FA, allows the tree plantation, cultivation and harvesting as well as the industrialization and trade of up to eight cannabis plants per household. 

Notwithstanding this, 'be understood as quantity for personal consumption, to 25 grams of marijuana', is set according to the Article 3... 

(Persons will) Be exempt from the responsibility of  'transport, in their possession, regardless of depositary, keeps them in stock or owns a quantity for personal consumption.'

CPS Kidnaps Children From Parents For Free Speech Activism and Exposing Police Corruption In Texas (Video)

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Big Pharma set to take over medical marijuana market

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David Edwards
Raw Story

Just as the federal government is clamping down on medical marijuana dispensaries, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) may be set to give Big Pharma the clearance to take over the market.

In 2007, GW Pharmaceuticals announced that it partnered with Otsuka to bring "Sativex" -- or liquefied marijuana -- to the U.S. The companies recently completed Phase II efficacy and safety trials testing and began discussion with the FDA for Phase III testing. Phase III is generally thought to be the final step before the drug can be marketed in the U.S.

"GW Pharmaceuticals plc (AIM: GWP) today announces the initiation of the Phase III clinical trials programme of Sativex in the treatment of pain in patients with advanced cancer, who experience inadequate analgesia during optimized chronic opioid therapy," GW said in a statement. "This indication represents the initial target indication for Sativex in the United States."

Sativex is the brand name for a drug derived from cannabis sativa. It's an extract from the whole plant cannabis, not a synthetic compound. Even GW defines the drug (.pdf) as marijuana.

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Medical Marijuana Rules Finalized In Arizona, Washington, DC

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Paul Armentano, Deputy Director
NORML

Regulations have been finalized to allow for the sanctioned-use and dispensing of medical cannabis in two more regions of the country: Arizona and in the nation’s capitol, Washington, DC.

In Arizona, representatives from the Arizona Department of Health Services have approved rules governing the state’s soon-to-be-implemented Arizona Medical Marijuana Program. Voters directed the state to approve regulations regarding the use and distribution of medicinal marijuana in November when they decided in favor of Proposition 203— making Arizona the fifteenth state since 1996 to legalize the physician-authorized use of cannabis. Program rules, physician certification forms, and answers to frequently asked questions are all available online from the Arizona Department of Health Services here.

The Cost of NYC's Marijuana Possession Arrests in 2010: $75 Million

Marijuana Possession #1 Arrest in NYC, Comprise 15% of All Arrests; City Council Members, Community Groups Held Press Conference at City Hall to Issue Major Report, Discuss Economic and Human Toll of Skyrocketing Arrests.

Jesse Warren Image

Drug Policy Alliance

NEW YORK: A new report released today at City Hall finds that arrests for marijuana possession cost New York City taxpayers approximately $75 million each year. The report, titled "$75 Million A Year", documents the astronomical financial costs of marijuana possession arrests in New York City. Major findings from the report include:

• A single arrest for marijuana possession, including all police and court expenses, costs from $1,000 to $2,000 or more, conservatively estimated.
• In 2010, New York City spent approximately $75 million arresting and jailing people, mostly young people, simply for possessing small amounts of marijuana.
• During Bloomberg’s tenure – from 2002 through 2010 – the NYPD made nearly 350,000 arrests for marijuana possession – costing taxpayers $350 million to $700 million.
• Marijuana possession arrests also have serious human costs and consequences. They create permanent criminal records that can be easily found on the Internet by employers, landlords, schools, credit agencies, licensing boards, and banks.

The Incredibly Simple Case for Decriminalizing Marijuana

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Scott Morgan
Stop the Drug War

It's so easy and obvious, even politicians can use it. In fact, here's Connecticut's Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney demonstrating how to discuss marijuana reform in terms almost anyone can understand.

“Our state should not encourage illegal drug possession and use; however, possession of small amounts of illicit substances and related paraphernalia for personal use should not leave a person with a life-long criminal record.” (NBC Connecticut)

That pretty much sums it up. No shortage of drug war scumbags have come forward to insist eagerly that wedon't need decriminalization because "hardly anyone goes to jail for marijuana," but the idiocy of prohibition doesn't begin when the iron bars slam shut.

Every last aspect of marijuana enforcement is an exhibit in mindless injustice, whether it's digging in people's pockets, testing urine specimens, sniffing around doorways, pulling guns on people, or condemning our youth to a lifetime of criminal stigma over a $10 stash. The very idea that we keep records of the people we've identified as marijuana users is so damagingly and unfathomably stupid that one can't help but marvel at how accustomed to it we've become.

The opportunity to end this terrible embarrassment is upon us at last, and it's exciting to see the Connecticut Legislature learning the right lesson from what decriminalization has accomplished for their neighbors in Massachusetts. This is how it starts.

Support ending insane prohibition by Donating to StopTheDrugWar.org or by Subscribing to their website.

RELATED ARTICLES:
Is New England The New Hotbed For Marijuana Law Reform?
Insurgent Candidate for KY Governor Says Legalize Hemp

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The Flower: Time to End Marijuana Prohibition (VIDEO)

Youtube: blackmustachecom
The Flower contrasts a utopian society that freely farms and consumes a pleasure giving flower with a society where the same flower is illegal and its consumption is prohibited. The animation is a meditation on the social and economic costs of marijuana prohibition.

Animation by Haik Hoisington
http://www.blackmustache.com

Music & Sound Design by Ion Furjanic
http://lavajumperstudios.bandcamp.com/

You can download the music here:
http://lavajumperstudios.bandcamp.com/album/songs-from-the-flower

Buy 1 Get 2 Free at Botanic Choice Buy 1 Bottle and Get 2 FREE (select items), plus Free Shipping on $25+ Expires 12/31/2010

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Did Eric Holder Kill California's Pot Initiative?

Chris Good
The Atlantic

California voters have sided against legalizing marijuana for recreational use statewide. Should Eric Holder get the credit?

That's what one California Democratic strategist suggested to me on Tuesday night after Proposition 19 had been declared a failure, who cited a blow delivered by Holder in the final week.

Two weeks before Election Day, the attorney general announced that if Prop. 19 passed, the federal government would fight it.

The Department of Justice opposed Prop. 19 and would "vigorously enforce" marijuana's federal illegality in California regardless of whether the measure passed, Holder wrote in an October 15 letter to former DEA administrators, responding to their own letter, which in early September urgedHolder to fight Prop. 19 by suing California to overturn it, should it pass.

This was the most public and direct repudiation of Prop. 19, specifically, that Holder had issued to date. He had previously said marijuana legalization is a bad idea, which the administration's drug czar had said as well, although the Department of Justice had not publicly commented on any aftermath. Federal law enforcers had said that it would remain their goal to uphold the laws, continuing their focus on large-scale trafficking and criminal networks--which is what the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the DEA have traditionally done.

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Why Pot Legalization Is the Most Important Issue Before Voters This Election Day

Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch
Huffington Post

Forget about what's happening in the partisan battle for control of Congress and statehouses across the country. The single-most important issue that will be decided on November 2 is California's Proposition 19, a ballot initiative that would legalize the cultivation, consumption, and sale of marijuana and allow municipalities to regulate and tax the stuff.

Though limited to voters in a single state, Prop. 19 is the only policy matter on the table with the potential to restructure the lives of virtually all Americans. If Prop. 19 passes, it will force, at long bloody last, an honest reconsideration of failed prohibitionist policies throughout the United States. In fact, given the drug war's influence on our foreign policy in Latin America and central Asia, Prop. 19's reverberations would even be felt far outside our borders.

Despite overt similarities to liquor prohibition in the 1920s, the drug war actually functions more like the Cold War used to. It's an almost-hidden, infrequently debated structuring device that affects every aspect of American politics, culture, and society. Just as Cold War anxieties transformed educational priorities and politicized everything from the Olympics to fluoridated drinking water, the drug war is everywhere with us. The same schools that plead poverty in teaching basic literature or math still all find time and money for D.A.R.E. and other drug-education classes, despite iffy results. Video games, public-service announcements, and even urinal-cake holders in men's rooms still implore us to just say no. Some 40 million workplace drug tests are administered each year, and even legal prescription drugs are getting some employees fired.

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RELATED ARTICLE:
Can Legalizing Marijuana Save California, Our Republic? 

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California Proposition 19: A Giant Leap Toward Ending the Fraudulent War on Drugs

Ethan Jacobs, J.D. -- Activist Post 

Contributing Writer

Introduction:

This November 2nd, Californian’s have an opportunity to vote yes on Proposition 19, which if passed, would set an important precedent for abolishing the fraudulent war on drugs. The war on drugs is a hypocritical fraud because hundreds of thousands of low level street marijuana dealers are arrested each year, while the global elite’s agents within the CIA and other government agencies continue to manage the international drug trade of narcotics. There are also many important social and economical reasons for supporting Proposition 19.

Proposition 19

If approved by voters, Proposition 19 will allow people 21 years old or older to possess, cultivate, or transport marijuana for personal use. Local governments will have the ability to regulate and tax commercial production and sale of marijuana. Proposition 19 prohibits people from possessing marijuana on school grounds, using it in public, smoking while minors are present, or providing it to anyone under 21 years old. Like with alcohol, driving while intoxicated is strictly prohibited.i

It is estimated that Proposition 19 will provide state and local governments with tens of millions of dollars of savings on the cost of incarcerating and supervising marijuana offenders. Additionally, state and local governments will are expected to gain millions of dollars in sales tax revenue.ii

The Global Elite & Government Drug Trafficking

The global elite and governments they control have been running the international drug trade for hundreds if not thousands of years.

The East India Company was an early English corporation that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China. The Company was granted an English Royal Charter, under the name Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies, by Queen Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600. The East India Company traded mainly in cotton, silk, indigo dye, saltpetre, tea, and opium:

In the eighteenth century, Britain had a huge trade deficit with Qing Dynasty China and so in 1773, the Company created a British monopoly on opium buying in Bengal. As the opium trade was illegal in China, Company ships could not carry opium to China. So the opium produced in Bengal was sold in Calcutta on condition that it be sent to China.…Despite the Chinese ban on opium imports, reaffirmed in 1799, it was smuggled into China from Bengal by traffickers and agency houses in amounts averaging 900 tons a year. The proceeds from drug-runners at Lintin Island were paid into the Company’s factory at Canton and by 1825, most of the money needed to buy tea in China was raised by the illegal opium trade. In 1838, with opium smuggling approaching 1,400 tons a year, the Chinese imposed a death penalty on opium smuggling and sent a new governor, Lin Zexu, to curb smuggling. This resulted in the First Opium War (1839–1842). The British seized Hong Kong and opened the Chinese market to British drug traffickers.iv

Nothing has changed in regard to the opium trade. US Marines currently guard the poppy seeds of Afghanistan, which are used to produce opium and sold on the world market. Fox News recently interviewed a commanding officer who openly admitted that the Marines provide the opium growers with “security and resources."

Black Ops & Black Market Profits

In an article titled Your Government Dealing Drugs, former Navy Seal and Governor of Minnesota, Jesse Venutra, shed light on the CIA’s involvement in the U.S. heroin epidemic of the 50s and 60s. “Almost from the moment of their founding in 1947, the CIA was giving covert support to organized drug trafficers in Europe and the Far East, and eventually the Middle East and Latin America.”vi Ventura’s article details how drugs funded Reagan’s war in Nicaragua, drug dealing in connection to the Iran Contra Affair, and the CIA’s involvement with Colonel Manuel Noriega of Panama. He continues, “It’s a proven fact that the CIA’s into drugs…It’s because they can get money to operate with and not have to account to Congress for what they’re doing… But doesn’t it really beg for a massive investigation and trials and a whole lot of people going to jail? This includes the big banks that allow the dirty money to be laundered through them.”

In his book, Called to Serve, Colonel James ‘Bo’ Gritz, a Green Beret and Vietnam veteran, also provides evidence of CIA drug dealing. “Manuel Noriega was paid $250,000 per-year as a CIA retainer…The CIA and Israeli Mossad were running cocaine from Columbia to Albert Air Force Base at Panama City.”

Robert “Tosh” Plumlee worked as an undercover CIA pilot and operative during the Ronald Reagan Administration’s “Drug War,” flying arms to Nicaragua, and the Contras and cocaineback to the United States.  Plumlee reported illegal shipments guns and drugs to Congress. He said that he flew into the former El Toro Marine Base, California, a number of times, inunmarked C-130s in the early morning hours.

In the event proposition 19 passes, the global elite and government drug dealers they sponsor will have to compete with marijuana, a plant that can grow practically anywhere inexpensively. This competition of recreational drugs could significantly reduce the drug trade income obtained by the global elite through the trafficking of narcotics.

Setting the Captives Free

The War on Drugs has been a necessary component of incrementally transforming the United States towards a police state. In 2007, the Department of Justice reported that there were 1,841,182 drug arrests in the United States, meaning that there were more drug abuse arrests than any other category of offenses.  Marijuana arrests accounted for 47.4% of the drug abuse arrests. Therefore, approximately 872,720 persons were arrested for marijuana offenses. Eighty-nine percent of these arrests were for possession.xii

Kevin Zees of Common Sense for Drug Policy writes:

…the United States with 5 percent of the world’s population has 25% of the world’s prisoners. One in 31 Americans is either behind bars, on probation or on parole…This mass “criminal” population in the land of the free: shows something is terribly wrong. What drives a system that results in 7 million Americans behind bars, on probation or parole? No doubt, the driving force is the war on drugs, and marijuana is the driving force of the drug war with a marijuana arrest every 38 seconds…xiii

Clearly the passage of Proposition 19 and legalization of marijuana would be a substantial victory for reducing the prison population and furthering inpidual freedom.

Will Law Enforcement Comply With the Passage of Proposition 19?

In the event that Proposition 19 passes, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., and Los Angels County Sheriff Lee Baca, announced that their agencies will act contrary to the will of California voters by continuing to enforce federal laws that prohibit marijuana activities.xiv Holder did not give specific reasons for his decision but alluded to the reluctance of the federal government to enforce drug laws differently in different states.xv

However, the police and the courts depend on the cooperation of communities to keep order. Law enforcement agents will lack legitimacy if they are enforcing a law the majority opposes. As with alcohol prohibition, marijuana laws will be repealed once large urban areas refuse to enforce them. xvi

Conclusion

Passage of California Proposition 19 and the legalization of marijuana would be a major victory for inpidual freedom and a blow to the police state. The war on drugs is a miserable failure; hundreds of thousands of low-level marijuana arrests are made each year while the global elite and their government puppets continue to traffic narcotics, making billions in off-the-books profits. Legalizing marijuana will reduce prison costs while increasing sales tax revenue for state and local government.

i Ballot Pedia. “California Proposition 19, the Marijuana Legalization Initiative (2010).”

ii Ibid.

iii Invisible Empire: A New World Order Defined. Dir. Jason Bermas. 2010. DVD.

online at

iv Wikipedia. “East India Company.” October 24, 2010

v Fox and Friends of Fox News Network. April 10, 2010. Posted on Youtube.com: Fox News – We Tolerate The Cultivation of Opium Poppies. 

vi TruTv. “Your Government Dealing Drugs.” By Jesse Ventura and Dick Russell.

Note: This article was condensed and excerpted from American Conspiracies by Jesse Ventura and Dick Russell with permission of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. New York, NY.

vii Ibid.

viii James Gritz. Called to Serve. Lazarus Pub Company. October 1991.

ix Bo Gritz. Behind the Looking Glass (The Bush Dynasty). < http://www.bogritz.com>

x Wikipedia. “William Robert Plumlee.” October 24, 2010

< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Robert_Plumlee>

xi Salem-News. Former CIA Pilot Tells of Guns and Drugs Shipments.” March 8, 2010.

By Robert O’Dowd and Tim King. < http://www.salem-news.com/articles/march082010/plumlee-sabow-ro-tk.php?

xii The Social Medicine Portal. “Record Marijuana Arrests Feed The Prison Industrial Complex.”

xiii Global Research. “Enforcing the Marijuana Laws in America? When the Majority say marijuana should not be a crime, the law looses it legitimacy.” October 19, 2010. By Kevin Zeese, President of Common Sense for Drug Policy (www.csdp.org). < http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=21511>

xiv U.S. Will Enforce Marijuana Laws, State Vote Aside. New York Times. By Adam Nagourney. October 15, 2010.

< http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/16/us/16pot.html>

xv Ibid.

xvi Global Research. Ibid.

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