( – promoted by buhdydharma )
http://thehill.com/blogs/congr…
Change You Can’t Believe In-
Eric Holder’s Department of Justice Setting Pot Bust Records 
FBI stats say 858,408 people were arrested for marijuana in 2009, under US Atty General Holder’s DOJ, the 2nd highest total ever, and it was an increase of + 1.3% from under the Bush administration’s last year in office, 2008. (the record was 872,721 in 2007)
per NORML, arrests for marijuana are more than one half of all drug arrests in the United States, up from 44% 10 years ago. Fortunately, the tide has started to change. You can even smoke marijuana legally through a vape nowadays, using the best 510 thread battery.
758,593 were charged with possession only , the remaining 99,815 were charged with sale or manufacture, which includes cultivation. With the rising use of marijuana products, such as mr kush vip, cultivation has become more and more prominent within the US. Especially now that some states are looking to change their laws, making potential growers more confident to look for information online about how to cultivate marijuana, for example, something like commercial led grow lights reviewed for their grow rooms. However, there is still a long way to go. There are now more dispensaries around that provide information about different strains of marijuana, for instance, something like the black diamond strain could be used for medical use.
per this FBI sourced chart here, http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius200… 251,740 Californians were arrested last year for drug offenses, if 52% of them were for marijuana, that would be 130,940 citizens of California busted for pot, the equivalent of 2 large sport stadiums filled with people, or about the population of the cities of Elk Grove or Thousand Oaks. If 88% of those people were charged with possession only, that’s still about
– 115, 196 Californians getting arrested in 2009 just for possessing marijuana –
California has then, at least 15% of all pot possession arrests nationwide. This then, shows what a cash cow for local law enforcement the continued war on herbal remedies is, as they seek out Federal funding which comes with strings attached that insist on it being used for this. Even if you were just spending a thousand dollars per arrest, that’s 115 million, if it’s a $10,000 bounty for each possession charge, that’s $1.15 BILLION added to the state’s LE coffers.
From this 9/22/10 article in The Hill, http://thehill.com/blogs/congr… , Paul Armentano compares the rhetoric of a Republican critic and the reality, and says the Obama administration has done little to change longstanding policy. Furthermore, in spite of campaign promises to respect individual states (14 now) medical marijuana laws, and Holder’s statement last year that Federal prosecutors were supposed to back off harassing medical marijuana patients, (see WAPO here 9/20/10 http://www.washingtonpost.com/… US Eases Stance on Medical Marijuana ) this Democratic administration is still engaging in a secret and punitive war on pot –
In an article entitled, ‘DEA, DOJ stay mum on medical marijuana raids,’ reporter Mike Riggs states: “Despite campaign promises to the contrary, the Department of Justice under President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder hasn’t stopped raiding marijuana dispensaries operating in states where sale of the drug is legal for medical purposes. But the DOJ has demonstrated one marked change now that it’s under Democratic control: The department has stopped publicizing medical marijuana raids, both by requesting that more cases be sealed under court order and by refusing to distribute press releases.”The story goes on to cite details of over a dozen recent federal raids of medical marijuana providers in California, Colorado, Michigan, and Nevada – all states that have approved the cultivation and possession of medical marijuana.
From the 9/13/10 Daily Caller,
Late last week, DEA and FBI agents raided five medical marijuana dispensaries in Nevada. In July, DEA agents raided the home of 65-year-old Mendocino County, California, grower Joy Greenfield and confiscated plants, money, and her computer. Also in July, DEA agents raided the home of a couple in Michigan who were licensed by the state to use marijuana, as well as three medical marijuana dispensaries in San Diego. In January and February of this year, the DEA raided two medical marijuana research labs in Colorado.__
“Either these are rogue DEA agents and U.S. Attorneys operating in violation of Holder’s memo, or the DEA and the DOJ want to be able to go about continuing a policy of undermining state marijuana laws without drawing attention.”Hermes suggested that the withholding of information may be a political tactic. While Pres. Barack Obama hasn’t said much about drug policy since assuming office, during his campaign, he said multiple times that he would end raids on medical marijuana dispensaries. Hermes and other marijuana activists think that the president is hiding a broken promise.
How cynical is that, that a “change agenda” politician would continue the policies of his predecessor, only pretending to change anything and ease up on pot prosecutions ?
Remember that so- called science based decision making process ? It’s not a narcotic, and pot, by every study ever done, is less harmful than beer or other legal alcohol. Yet the beer distributors are fighting pot legalization and Prop 19, too, giving $10,000 to the committee opposing the decriminalization of marijuana.
http://www.redding.com/news/20…“Plain and simple, the alcohol industry is trying to kill the competition. Their mission is to drive people to drink.”
Plus the pot raids are giving Republican Tea Party wing nuts that infest northern CA ample campaign fodder- here’s Rep. Wally Herger, (R CA 02) http://www.wallyherger.com/ participating in a marijuana eradication with Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko…. Only the publication pulled the original story from Sept 1, 2010. And it’s not on google cache. Just the headline remains. http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci…
•••
This is still on Wally Herger’s website where he boasts he did a pot raid. Note the header underneath where he says he’s going to repeal Health Reform. Typical Tea Party . Why is the Democratic Attorney General of the US, Eric Holder, helping to get this person elected ?
Here’s another one in Herger’s area, that only exists as a title and comments: Pot garden raid Friday nets three arrests near Platte Mountain http://www.topix.net/forum/sou…
This story is still up. They raided a city council candidate.
Tehama’s sole remaining storefront-style pot collective raided by agents 9/8/10 http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci…
As of about 4 p.m. Tuesday, all the marijuana in Tehama Herbal Collective in Corning had been seized. Agents also took paperwork, computers and more than $12,400 from the collective.Agents reportedly purchased marijuana from THC on another six occasions without recommendations, in at one case even buying for a fictional friend, Maher said. Selling marijuana plants to someone without a medical recommendation is still considered a felony in California. Some local officials, including Maher, (special agent) maintain that even under state law medical marijuana cannot be exchanged for money.
More stories of Wally Herger’s district and Butte County’s (part of that county is in it) Eight Marijuana Raids on Medical Pot Users in June can be found here: http://www.newsreview.com/chic…
“I opened the door, and they said, ‘We have a warrant to look around,'” said Tognoli, who also owns his own trucking business and has been outspoken at local City Council and Board of Supervisors meetings regarding drafting an ordinance for medical-marijuana collectives.
Several deputies searched through his house, seizing all his plants, his cell phone, computer, bank records and other papers. He didn’t realize until he tried to use one of his bank accounts that those had been seized as well
“Of course, every check bounced,” he said. “I estimate [the raid has] cost my trucking business about $111,000.”
Recently in an interview with Telemundo, (video here http://www.bing.com/videos/wat… ) President Obama actually referred to the current economic crisis as being on the brink of the 2nd Great Depression that was supposedly stopping the implementation of other domestic policy and the Senate passing certain bills. Here is one way to really save money- stop the ridiculous, expensive war on medical and recreational use of marijuana.
And quit pretending you’re not doing it. We have OTHER problems and priorities in this country- or haven’t you noticed ?
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…. I expect more of this completely hypocritical bullsh*t to be coming down.
Some of these raids were clearly political retaliatory in nature. Disgusting after watching the Obama administration give everything in the Bush admin a pass, like torture.
Oh, and full disclosure- I don’t drink, and I have no idea what it’s like to get stoned and I’m not on anti depressants nor lots of NSAIDS – obviously I’m very dangerous, and must be converted to the Pharmaceutical Lifestyle !
Wally Herger, besides being a do nothing slug who has crazy followers, is a Tom McClintock enabler because he dumps a lot of cash into his campaign via his HERGER PAC.
Author
…. can you believe this toad Herger has that on his campaign website, if that doesn’t say what this is really all about, I don’t know what does.
My county’s sheriff dept, Placer, also just did a donation to Feinstein’s state account she has with the LA sheriff’s dept to fund all these Republican’s via the backdoor of using narc money to fight prop 19. My tax dollars at waste.
and Afghanistan, and drones, and Gitmo, and protecting torturers, and wall street, and the pentagon budget, and his buck up messaging, you get the feeling that he’s trying his goddamndest to outbush bush?
So sick so soon, of these people.
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While Wall Street Vandals raped this nation and brought the globe to the brink of financial collapse.
So glad the DOJ has its priorities straight.
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cross-posted, other essay.
stoned, educated lefty is just as dangerous as a terrorist. But Afghan opium mixed with Coke and Tobacco in a sweet crude tumbler is oh so good. Just ask the last two presidents and the current, so called, one.
Marijuana is a symbolic issue and always has been. Originally it was a law that sought to target Blacks and Latinos and then had the ultimate cop-mentality wet dream in that it targeted hipsters, bohos and artists the most hated people in the theater of cruelty that is right-wing politics in America.
Pot is a consciousness enhancing drug and anything of that sort is very, very dangerous to the authorities. The most important part of marijuana repression is that it is nonsensical and as such useful to the authorities who want to have arbitrary powers that have little of nothing to do with public safety for their own need for power and the fact that marijuana offenders tend not to be dangerous. Little knows secret: cops aren’t that brave.