Congress is too stupid to legislate marijuana law

[RainDog]

I hope MPP or NORML, etc. will start a petition to ask Holder to remove cannabis from the drug schedule because it is obvious that the elected representatives from several states are simply too stupid to do the job for which they have been elected.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/29/sen-jeff-sessions-quotes-lady-gaga-to-prove-pot-hurts-the-health-of-america/

During a Senate Judiciary oversight hearing on the Department of Justice, Sessions told Attorney General Eric Holder that he was appalled that President Barack Obama had recently said marijuana was no more dangerous than alcohol.

“I’m heartbroken to see what the president said just a few days ago,” Sessions explained. “It’s just stunning to me. I find it beyond comprehension. Did the president conduct any medical or scientific survey?” the senator wanted to know, pointing to studies that claimed marijuana use was linked to impairments in IQ and anxiety.

“That is exactly why one of our aid and enforcement priorities is the prevention of marijuana to minors,” Holder replied.

“Well, Lady Gaga said she’s addicted to it and it’s not harmless!” Sessions insisted. “She’s been addicted to it. Patrick Kennedy, former Congressman Kennedy, said the president is wrong on this subject!”

If a Congressperson is too stupid to read the research that indicates cannabis is no more addictive than coffee - that Congressperson is incompetent to rule on this issue.

If a Congressperson thinks Lady Gaga has anything worthwhile to say about public policy - that Congressperson is too incompetent to hold office, much less rule on this issue.

If members of Congress cherry pick evidence to believe, that person is incompetent to hold public office.

If anyone thinks Patrick Kennedy has anything worthwhile to say about this issue - well, someone whose family made its fortune in a competing industry while said product is illegal has no fucking business saying one word about this subject - and, frankly, the things that he has said indicate he, too, is incompetent (or well-paid to be so) to serve as a spokesperson on this issue.

Congress should READ THE FUCKING RECOMMENDATION from the DEA's own committee to determine the safety of cannabis.

Or READ THE FUCKING STUDY DONE BY NIXON that recommended MARIJUANA SHOULD NOT BE ILLEGAL.

Holder needs to simply remove cannabis from the drug schedule because this Congress has impeded nearly every bit of legislation meant to improve this nation.

If they're a Republican, they have shown they are not worthy of the title they hold.

Americans cannot afford to be ruled by idiots.

edit to add: please sign the petition to remove Michelle Leonart as acting head of the DEA. She is a liar and unworthy of her office. http://www.change.org/petitions/president-barack-obama-fire-anti-marijuana-dea-administrator-michele-leonhart

[RainDog]

1. The DEA made a vet wait 9 years for a ruling on mmj for PTSD

Last edited Wed Jan 29, 2014, 10:40 PM - Edit history (1)

The DEA is too corrupt and too wedded to its stupidity to make laws concerning marijuana.

Americans for Safe Access (ASA) had petitioned the DEA to hold rescheduling hearings regarding cannabis and they simply ignored the request for 9 years. They finally responded after the threat of a lawsuit and denied the hearing on Jan. 22, 2013.

One of the plaintiffs was a veteran who wanted to reduce his use of opiod medications prescribed for pain relating to war injuries. His doctor also told him that he would be refused medication if he tested positive for cannabinoids, even tho cannabis is not physiologically addictive and offers better results than morphine, etc.

The state prefers morphine because, you know, cannabis is so dangerous in comparison....

http://americansforsafeaccess.org/article.php?id=7474

[RainDog]

3. DEA Negotiated With Mexican Drug Cartel

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/13/dea-negotiated-mexico-drug-cartels_n_4590832.html

Agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Justice Department officials have met in secret with members of Mexican drug cartels in exchange for information on rival drug organizations, a new extensive investigative report by Mexico's El Universal newspaper startlingly concludes.

According to the report, U.S. agents held more than 50 secret meetings with cartel operatives on Mexican territory between 2000 and 2012 -- without informing Mexican authorities.

El Universal writes:

Without the presence of Mexican authorities, as bilateral agreements stipulate, without informing the Mexican government, the agents of the DEA met with members of the cartels in Mexican territory, to obtain information about their rivals and at the same time and establish at the same time a network of informants of narco-traffickers, who signed cooperation agreements, subject to results, so that they can obtain future benefits, including charges being dropped in the United States.


Several of the documents were related to the Chicago trial of Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, the son of Sinaloa leader Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada.

As Business Insider noted in 2012, Zambada-Niebla alleged while in detention in Chicago that the U.S. government struck a deal with Mexico's Sinaloa cartel to finance and arm the drug traffickers in exchange for information. Zambada-Niebla was arrested after having met with DEA officials, and believed that the alleged deal implied he was immune from arrest or prosecution.


Apparently the DEA and Justice Dept. Negotiated with drug cartels in Mexico without informing the Mexican govt. Using informants is standard police work. I'm sure the rationale was the fear that govt. officials were corrupt.

Remind me of this... October 03, 2011

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/03/nation/la-na-atf-guns-20111004

Emails show top Justice Department officials knew of ATF gun program

In the emails that the department turned over to congressional investigators, Justice Department officials last October discussed both the Fast and Furious gun-trafficking surveillance operation in Phoenix and a separate investigation from 2006 and 2007 called Operation Wide Receiver. In Wide Receiver, which took place in Tucson, firearms also were acquired by illegal straw purchasers and lost in Mexico, the emails say.


...this sounds like it was something Bush had already put in place.

[RainDog]

4. Leonhart refuses to answer simple questions because she's a liar

Protecting her big fat budget and salary for arresting approx. 750,000 Americans for simple possession. What a bunch of Barney fucking Fifes.

[RainDog]

5. Physicist compares DEA to creationists aka anti-science bigots.

Physicist: If All Science Were Run Like Marijuana Research, Creationists Would Control Paleontology

In the face of obstacles to marijuana research from both the Drug Enforcement Administration and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology and one-time MacArthur Fellow is calling out the federal government on its obstruction of science.

During an address before a medical marijuana conference Friday, John H. Schwartz explained how the DEA and NIDA act as a “tag team” to censor science, with NIDA holding a monopoly over legal access to cannabis for research, and the DEA refusing to reconsider the drug’s designation in the Controlled Substances Act as a dangerous substance with no medical value on the basis that sufficient research does not exist. He alleges that the government has blocked research even though it has long been aware of marijuana’s potential to serve many medical benefits including shrink aggressive cancer cells is because it might “send the wrong message to children”:
...

As a physicist, I can assure you that this not how physics works. … We are all expected to act like grownups and accept it gracefully as experiments prove our favorite theories are false. In physics, unlike marijuana policy, we consider the right message to send to be the message that’s true. …

Consider what American science might look like if all research were run like marijuana research is being run now. Suppose the Institute for Creation Science were put in charge of approving paleontology digs and the science of human evolution. Imagine what would happen to the environment if we gave coal and oil companies the power to block any climate research they didn’t like.

...
complete piece: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/25/1629721/caltech-physicist-if-all-science-were-run-like-marijuana-research-creationists-would-control-paleontology/

[RainDog]

7. Federales with reefer madness withheld or ignored medical evidence

that cannabis is effective medication for epilepsy -

in 1947: http://www.democraticunderground.com/11701690

[RainDog]

9. Why does the DEA hate veterans?

(from Oct. 2011)

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/04/dept-of-health-and-human-services-blocks-fda-approved-marijuana-research-for-veterans/

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has blocked a pilot study to examine the benefits of marijuana for veterans with treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

...“Hundreds of veterans in medical marijuana states already report using marijuana to control their PTSD symptoms,” MAPS said in a statement. “The growing number of service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with combat-related trauma combined with large numbers of treatment-resistant veterans highlights the pressing need for research into additional treatments for PTSD.”

Recently, a study conducted by Haifa University in Israel found that rats which were treated with marijuana within 24 hours of a traumatic experience successfully avoided any symptoms of PTSD.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has denied researchers requests to obtain licenses to grow marijuana, claiming that the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) — overseen by the HHS — can be the only one to supply marijuana for Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-regulated research. NIDA’s monopoly on the supply of marijuana for research means the study has no way of moving forward, even though it was approved by the FDA.

MAPS and a law firm that represents pharmaceutical-industry clients has offered pro bono representation to MAPS to challenge the NIDA monoply.

DEA faces federal lawsuit for blocking cannabis research:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/09/21/marijuana-researchers-get-pro-bono-representation-in-dea-lawsuit/

[RainDog]

12. Why the DEA Should Have NO SAY on cannabis law

http://www.businessinsider.com/because-we-say-so-2011-7

If the medication involved were a typical blood pressure pill or arthritis treatment, this sort of pronouncement would come from the Food and Drug Administration, which is charged with determining whether medications are safe and effective. But the drug is cannabis, and the ruling came from the Drug Enforcement Agency.

...The DEA’s website contains plenty of pages explaining why marijuana is so bad. On one, it claims that marijuana is harmful because it “contains more than 400 chemicals, including most of the harmful substances found in tobacco smoke.” If harmful side effects disqualified pharmaceuticals from medical use, we would not see many of the warning-laden advertisements that populate prime-time network television.

On another page, the DEA says marijuana actually does have a medical use, but that the smoked form of the drug does not need to be legal because the active ingredient, THC, has already been isolated and replicated in the synthetic prescription drug Marinol. So, according to the DEA, marijuana needs to be kept away from people because it is harmful in the same ways as cigarettes – which are excluded from the Controlled Substances Act – but marijuana is also different because it is medically useful, while cigarettes are not.

Screwy logic, but that is not the DEA’s fault. It is not in the business of writing laws; it is in the business of enforcing them. Why ask cops to play doctor?

[hobbit709]

2. Pistol Pete Sessions is TSTL

[RainDog]

6. Findings of the Schafer Commission, 1970

They ignored the reality that marijuana is safer than alcohol and less lethal than aspirin and ignored the recommendation to decriminalize marijuana in 1970 based upon 50 studies from Nixon's hand-picked 1970s Schafer Commission

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/nc/ncmenu.htm

From the findings:

The criminal law is too harsh a tool to apply to personal possession even in the effort to discourage use. It implies an overwhelming indictment of the behavior which we believe is not appropriate. The actual and potential harm of use of the drug is not great enough to justify intrusion by the criminal law into private behavior, a step which our society takes only 'with the greatest reluctance.

We have carefully analyzed the interrelationship between marihuana the drug, marihuana use as a behavior, and marihuana as a social problem. Recognizing the extensive degree of misinformation about marihuana as a drug, we have tried to demythologize it. Viewing the use of marihuana in its wider social context, we have tried to desymbolize it.

Considering the range of social concerns in contemporary America, marihuana does not, in our considered judgment, rank very high. We would deemphasize marihuana as a problem.

Additionally, Schafer noted: Marihuana’s relative potential for harm to the vast majority of individual users and its actual impact on society does not justify a social policy designed to seek out and firmly punish those who use it.

iow, this issue is ALREADY SETTLED, concerning health and civil rights issues and the ruling is in favor of decriminalization. The ONLY REASON cannabis is criminalized is because OUR GOVT IS TOO CORRUPT TO DO THE RIGHT THING.

[RainDog]

8. The most extensive analysis of any drug in the history of humankind

Arnold Trebach, Arnold S. Trebach, JD, PhD, discussing the DEA rescheduling hearings of 1988 with Judge Francis Young. Trebach also founded the Drug Policy Foundation in 1986.

In 1988, the federal govt. AGAIN ignored the recommendations for medical marijuana and continued to pretend that marijuana has no medical value. FRANCIS L. YOUNG, Administrative Law Judge for the DEA, recommended

http://www.ccguide.org/young88.php

Here's what the DEA's own judge said:

In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. For example, eating ten raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death.

Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care."

[RainDog]

10. Senate Subcomittee report (2011) THE DRUG WAR IS A FAILURE

(unless you're a private contractor)

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/06/10/senate-report-war-on-drugs-failed/

A U.S. Senate subcommittee report this week called into question efforts to curb drug exports from Latin America, suggesting that billions in tax dollars had been wasted in no-bid contracts with no oversight on how the money was being spent or whether efforts were succeeding.

"It's becoming increasingly clear that our efforts to rein in the narcotics trade in Latin America, especially as it relates to the government's use of contractors, have largely failed," Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, said in a media advisory. "Without adequate oversight and management we are wasting tax dollars and throwing money at a problem without even knowing what we're getting in return."

The McCaskill report indicates that U.S. taxpayers have shelled out over $3 billion for work and equipment related to the drug war in Latin America from 2005-2009, and most of that money went to private contractors.

McCaskill launched the inquiry after looking into counternarcotics efforts underway in Afghanistan. However, neither the Department of Defense nor the State Dept. were able to provide adequate documentation on their contracts and in many cases could not even identify firms that were given millions in tax dollars.


Five major defense contractors received the bulk of drug war contract spending: Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, DynCorp, ARINC and ITT. Out of all the firms, DynCorp benefitted most, winning $1.1 billion.

[RainDog]

11. The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937: Background, Hearings on H.R. 6385, 6906, Letters

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/taxact.htm

If you read the hearings from the time when marijuana was first made federally illegal without a stamp, the Congress people at that time were also TOO FUCKING STUPID OR CORRUPT to do their jobs.

They ignored the advice of a physician giving testimony because a few wealthy assholes wanted a law and Anslinger wanted a reason to be relevant with the end of alcohol prohibition.

[RainDog]

13. 1944 La Guardia Commission finds prohibition based upon lies

http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/sourcefiles/laguardia.pdf

The prohibitionists claimed marijuana made people homicidal maniacs who murdered their children, lost touch with reality, etc. etc.

LaGuardia's commission found marijuana made people relaxed and, in some cases, created anxiety. That's it.

[RainDog]

14. HOW MUCH MORE EVIDENCE DO YOU NEED, CONGRESS?

Are you just so corrupt and want those federal funds to target minorities for arrest in your states?
---everybody knows that's what you're doing. Targeting minorities for arrest, you bigoted assholes.

Are you just so corrupt you want to fluff your good buddies in the defense contracting industry?
---at the cost of children's lives who could be spared by IMMEDIATELY removing cannabis from the drug schedules?

Are you just so opposed to free enterprise, just so concerned about protecting fossiled industries that contribute to your campaigns that you don't want to do the right thing?
---since cannabis can replace nearly every product made with petrol?

[RainDog]

15. Oh, and little Jeffie Sessions, (R-IDIOT)

Little Paddy Kennedy admits marijuana is safer than alcohol (at about 6:34) after he made stupid comments that have no bearing on the actual issue of legal cannabis for adults, and comments that have no bearing on marijuana itself (the canard "ooooh, it's more potent.&quot People use less for this reason.

The American public also agrees with President Obama that alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana.

http://reason.com/blog/2014/01/22/tonight-nick-gillespie-vs-patrick-kenned

edit to add: IT'S A FACT. Alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana. http://www.mpp.org/assets/pdfs/library/MarijuanavAlcohol.pdf