Police are now threatening the public, claiming they may have to euthanize drug dogs if marijuana becomes legal because they were trained to be anti-social.
The post Illinois Police Just Claimed if Marijuana is Legalized, They’ll Have to Kill Their Police Dogs appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
(ANTIMEDIA) — 4/20 is an international day to celebrate a little green plant that, despite its increasingly evident medicinal properties, continues to remain illegal in countless countries. But that hasn’t stopped the annual festivities from commencing around the world as an increasing number of people accept that cannabis is not the “a burning weed with its […]
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) on Friday morning announced his intention to introduce legislation to decriminalize marijuana federally.
“Today, I am formally announcing my plan to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level. It’s time we allow states, once and for all, to have the power to decide what works best for them,” Schumer wrote on Twitter.
Schumer’s official announcement followed a Thursday night interview with Vice News, in which he discussed his legalization agenda. The sexagenarian Senator also signed a bong for the news site, which has attained a marijuana-laced reputation with articles like “The Best Weed Strains for Mind-Blowing Sex.”
The post Chuck Schumer wants to legalize it appeared first on Intellihub.
WASHINGTON (INTELLIHUB) Well, it’s official, President Donald J. Trump has gone from being my favorite president to being essentially a laughing stock of the country after his boy, Attorney General Jeff Sessions suddenly declared war on the highly beneficial plant known as marijuana, and that, my friends, is where I draw the line.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions managed to secretly rally the Republicans behind the scenes to rescind an Obama era policy that discouraged prosecutors from bringing charges against those who use or sell marijuana in states that the all natural plant has already been legalized for medical or recreational use.
Sessions botched move was likely financed by Big Pharma and lobbyists who seek to go against the word of God altogether.
Behold, Genisis 1:28-1:30 (The New American Standard Bible) states the following:
The Sixth Day: Creatures on Land
…28God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plantyielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be foodfor you; 30and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so.…
You see, so no one, not even the Attorney General can tell Americans that a plant (marijuana) is equal to a Schedule I substance like heroin, LSD, ecstasy, methaqualone, and peyote because of the fact that it’s simply just a plant, nothing more.
Not to mention, a poll was taken in April of 2017 which shows that 51% of Americans over the age of 18 have smoked marijuana.
The bottom line is that the plant was put here by God for the people of the Earth to use and if some politician in Washington thinks he can defy God than Trump has lost all of my support and possibly the support of 51% of the countrymen and women who have partaken.
Should President Donald Trump fire @jeffsessions over his pointless battle with a plant known as #marijuana?
— Intellihub (@intellihubnews) January 5, 2018
Shepard Ambellas is an opinion journalist, analyst, and the founder and editor-in-chief of Intellihub News & Politics (Intellihub.com). Shepard is also known for producing Shade: The Motion Picture (2013) and appearing on Travel Channel’s America Declassified (2013). Shepard is a regular contributor to Infowars. Read more from Shep’s World. Follow Shep on Facebook. Subscribe to Shep’s YouTube channel.The post Trump to lose support of many Americans over Jeff Sessions pointless battle with a plant that has major medical benefits appeared first on Intellihub.
(INTELLIHUB) — A recent Twitter poll shows that nearly 80% of those who took it feel that President Donald Trump should fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions over his botched ideology of the plant known as marijuana.
The 24-hour poll which closed out Saturday asked 81 participants the following question: “Should President Donald Trump fire Jeff Sessions over his pointless battle with a plant known as marijuana?”
Should President Donald Trump fire @jeffsessions over his pointless battle with a plant known as #marijuana?
— Intellihub (@intellihubnews) January 5, 2018
The post Poll: 79% say President Trump should fire A.G. Jeff Sessions over his marijuana criminalization crusade appeared first on Intellihub.
(TIM) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced he will introduce a new bill on Monday that would legalize hemp, a non-psychoactive relative of marijuana, as an agricultural product. The bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rand Paul(R-KY). In addition to legalization, the Hemp Farming Act of 2018 would remove the product from the federal government’s schedule of controlled substances, while […]
(ANTIMEDIA) — A recent poll commissioned by an anti-cannabis group attempted to suggest that Americans don’t overwhelmingly want legalization, but the results actually show how unpopular federal prohibition has become.
Though Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) says it does not want to demonize cannabis and defines itself as a non-partisan group, it openly admits it campaigns against legalization.
This makes it unsurprising that despite its poll results, which found that 78% of Americans disapprove of current federal policy, they attempted to spin the findings as proof of dwindling support for access to the plant.
According to the press release about the survey, titled, “New National Poll Shows Support for Marijuana Legalization Dips Below 50% When Voters Are Given Other Policy Choices”:
“In the poll, 49% of likely voters supported legalization whereas 50% supported other policies. One percent were undecided.”
This is true, and it seems to indicate that the pro-legalization percentages from polls by organizations like Gallup skew high because those surveyed aren’t given other options to choose from.
“This poll shows that we need to move beyond this false dichotomy between prohibition and legalization, especially for individual users,” said Kevin Sabet, Ph.D., President of SAM. “These results clearly indicate the oft-touted vast public support for marijuana legalization has a shakier foundation than marijuana investors would have you believe. This should give pause to politicians and marijuana financiers alike.”
However, the other “options” in the survey were decriminalization, defined as “removing the possibility of jail time for possession and also allowing for medical marijuana, but keep the sale of marijuana illegal,” and legalizing “the use of marijuana for physician-supervised medical use.”
Between the 49% of respondents who advocate full legalization, the 29% who prefer medical legalization, and the 5% who support decriminalization, the poll overwhelmingly shows federal policies are not lining up with what the vast majority of people want.
According to the anti-cannabis group, 78% of people polled oppose current prohibition measures, suggesting the poll backfired despite the organization’s efforts to cast doubt on growing tolerance for marijuana.
Medical marijuana is still illegal at the federal level, and federal drug laws still impose jail time and/or fines for individual users.
(TFC) – President Trump and his Attorney General are moving to restart the failed war on drugs and will be targeting marijuana in areas the states have deemed it legal. Too cowardly to face the consequences of their actions, the dynamic duo of drug deterrence have pawned the responsibility off on federal prosecutors. In the process, the President who pretends to care about the military and veterans is betraying no less than 40,000 veterans who suffer from PTSD and use cannabis.
The medicinal uses of marijuana, especially in regards to PTSD, are apparent unless you’re in the pocket of private prisons or pharmaceutical companies.
Contrary to what the out-of-touch suits in Washington might believe, those advocating for medical marijuana are not just a bunch of reefer-crazed hippies. The American Legion, the largest veterans’ group in the United States, is in favor of medical marijuana. The membership of the American Legion is spread out over more than 10,000 individual chapters (called “posts”) and typically holds conservative leanings, but it brought forth resolutions at its national convention supporting marijuana in 2016 and 2017. Both passed.
According to the American Legion, 22% of veterans currently use cannabis to treat a medical condition and 83% of all veterans support the legalization of medical cannabis.
Thomas Brennan was an infantryman in Iraq and Afghanistan. He penned an op-ed for the New York Times about cannabis. He recalled the pills given to him and detailed how they didn’t work. He wrote about his apprehension regarding using pot after a friend suggested it.
“In 2013, a friend rolled a joint and handed it to me, urging me to smoke it later. It will relieve your symptoms, he promised. That night I anxiously paced around my empty house. I hesitated to light it up because I’d always bought into the theory of weed as a “gateway drug.” But after a few tokes, I stretched out and fell asleep. I slept 10 hours instead of my usual five or six. I woke up feeling energized and well rested. I didn’t have nightmares or remember tossing or turning throughout the night, as I usually did.”
He went on to detail some raw data.
“The medical benefits of marijuana for the more than 360,000 post-Sept. 11 veterans who have brain injuries are not universally recognized. (As many as one in five veterans are thought to have post-traumatic stress.) But medical experts like Dr. Frank Ochberg, a psychiatrist and former associate director of the National Institute of Mental Health, believe that ‘medical marijuana absolutely belongs in the pharmacy for post-traumatic stress and brain injury treatment.’ The V.A., Dr. Ochberg said, ‘is failing veterans by not making cannabis a treatment option.’”
The science behind legal pot is clear. States with legal marijuana have fewer opioid deaths. That’s the real plague currently sweeping the nation. Access to medical marijuana means less painkiller abuse and overdose. There is less opioid use among those suffering from chronic pain if they use medical marijuana.
It might be possible to forgive the Administration’s failures and betrayal of veterans, if someone believed those in office, who are once again selling out vets, didn’t know of these findings and studies conducted outside of government auspices. The problem, of course, is the fact the Department of Veterans Affairs detailed the correlation of 40,000 PTSD and pot users more than three years ago.
Make no mistake, the President and his Attorney General are aware they are selling out those who served. They just don’t care. Not all of the wounds of war are visible. This Administration only cares about what is visible and what it can politicize. While the President tweets about disrespecting veterans because someone didn’t stand for the anthem, his Attorney General is pushing to deny veterans the medicine that works. I wonder if Trump will tweet about the increase in suicides of vets because of his betrayal.
By Justin King / Republished with permission / The Fifth Column / Report a typo
This article was chosen for republication based on the interest of our readers. Anti-Media republishes stories from a number of other independent news sources. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect Anti-Media editorial policy.
(RPI) — Attorney General Jeff Sessions kicked off the New Year by reversing the Obama-era guidance for federal prosecutors to limit their enforcement of federal marijuana laws in states that have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use. In what is almost certainly not a coincidence, Sessions’ announcement came days after California’s law legalizing recreational marijuana sales went into effect. Sessions’ action thus runs counter to the wishes of the majority of the people in the most populous US state, as well the people of the 28 other states (and DC) that have legalized some form of marijuana use.
Federal laws criminalizing marijuana and other drugs have failed to reduce drug use. However, they have succeeded in giving power-hungry politicians and bureaucrats what was, before 9-11, the go-to justification for violating our civil liberties. The federal war on marijuana has also wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. Far from reducing crime, outlawing drugs causes crime by ensuring criminals will control the market for drugs. Outlawing drugs also provides incentives for drug dealers to increase the potency, and thus the danger, of drugs, as higher potency products take up less space and are thus easier to conceal from law enforcement.
The US Constitution does not give the federal government any authority to criminalize marijuana. Thus, the question of whether marijuana is legal is one of the many issues reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment. If the Constitution gives Congress the power to ban marijuana, then why was it necessary to amend the Constitution to give Congress the power to ban alcohol?
Sessions’ usurpation of state marijuana laws is the type of federal intrusion into state issues usually opposed by conservatives. Sadly, too many conservatives are just as willing to sacrifice constitutional government and individual liberties for the war on drugs as they are for the war on terror.
Conservative hypocrisy is especially strong when it comes to medical marijuana. Many Americans have used medical marijuana for conditions such as cancer and glaucoma. Yet many conservatives who (properly) decry Obamacare’s mandate forcing every American to purchase health insurance cheer Jeff Sessions’ effort to deprive suffering individuals of the medical treatment of their choice. Cruel paternalism in healthcare policy is often associated with progressives, but unfortunately conservatives are just as guilty.
States that have legalized medical marijuana have fewer deaths related to opioid abuse. These states have also experienced a decrease in crime and black market activity. This is perhaps because some have found medical marijuana a viable alternative to opioids.
Laws outlawing marijuana criminalize peaceful behavior that, while potentially harmful to the individual, does not violate the rights of others. Therefore, these laws, like all laws authorizing government force against peaceful, if immoral, actions, are incompatible with a free society. Once again we see the hypocrisy of conservatives who decry progressives’ war on tobacco and fatty foods, yet support jailing marijuana users.
Federal laws outlawing marijuana violate the Constitution, justify violations of civil liberties, and increase violence. By criminalizing nonviolent behavior voluntarily chosen by individuals, drug laws undermine the moral principles underlying a free society.
President Trump should fire Jeff Sessions and replace him with someone who respects the Constitution and individual liberty. Also, officials from states with legal medical or recreational marijuana should refuse to cooperate with those tasked with enforcing federal marijuana laws. If President Trump and state officials stand up for liberty, the people will join them in saying no to Jeff Sessions.
Op-ed by Ron Paul / Republished with permission / RPI / Report a typo
This article was chosen for republication based on the interest of our readers. Anti-Media republishes stories from a number of other independent news sources. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect Anti-Media editorial policy.
We should hope that Jeff Sessions’ recently-instituted changes are not the result of the administration, and rather that he is the sole architect of those abrupt changes in DOJ policy. On the surface, some of them may seem “effective,” however, Sessions’ credibility has been under scrutiny recently for his meetings with the Russian ambassador prior to the President’s election, along with his reluctance to investigate Comey, Mueller, or Hillary Clinton. The first item was supposedly to meet with the Russian ambassador to discuss Ukraine and the separatist conflict in the Donbass.
The remainder? The Russian Uranium deal was made by Bill Clinton in 2005, finalized two years later. Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State under Obama in January 2009, and Kazakhstan was already sending in tens of millions to the Clinton Foundation. Rosatom and Uranium One (a Canadian firm), the GRU (also known as the “Aquarium,” the Russian (formerly USSR’s) version of our CIA, almost 300,000 acres of Wyoming that would be mined for Uranium…
The complexity is staggering, although it is not the scope of this article. Rosatom supplies technicians and equipment to Iran: it is a Russian firm, and as much as Hillary Clinton verbally denounced Putin, she was more than willing (while in her official role as Secretary of State, mind you) to broker a deal giving Putin and Rosatom controlling interest in Uranium One. The Russians would acquire a tremendous amount of American uranium.
The point: all of this is going on, and the Attorney General of the United States, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is much more heavily-engaged in cementing a policy of almost Draconian “reforms” that will help big business, increase statist and oligarchic power in the United States, and tighten the noose a little more around the neck of the American people.
As reported by Rachel Blevins writing for Activist Post, a recent article entitled War on the Poor: Jeff Sessions Rescinds Legal Doc That Ended Debtors’ Prisons, published on 12/30/17. The article covers how Sessions rescinded a policy letter of 2016 that forbids the imprisonment of the poor because they cannot pay court fines and fees. Here is an excerpt from that article quoting Sessions:
“Last month, I ended the longstanding abuse of issuing rules by simply publishing a letter or posting a web page. Congress has provided for a regulatory process in statute, and we are going to follow it. This is good government and prevents confusing the public with improper and wrong advice. Therefore, any guidance that is outdated, used to circumvent the regulatory process, or that improperly goes beyond what is provided for in statutes or regulation should not be given effect. That is why today, we are ending 25 examples of improper or unnecessary guidance documents identified by our Regulatory Reform Task Force led by our Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand. We will continue to look for other examples to rescind, and we will uphold the rule of law.”
So, Sessions is now the Champion of the Rule of Law (De Facto or De Jure being synonymous apparently). Rather, the champion of the will of the corporate and political hierarchy to continue its slow-sliding repeal of justice for the common citizen while turning a blind eye to those nabobs who should be bedecked in orange this very moment.
The prison industries (another “partner” of the federal government) stand to benefit by such a thing. Read Blevins’ article for some sterling examples of where a few dollars due to happy Mayberry-type municipalities were turned into thousands, along with prolonged incarceration and, of course, a ruined record for the individuals. Sessions’ actions are not confined to the justice system, however: as a “moral guardian” and the head of the Department of Justice, Sessions is now attacking marijuana.
Personally, I am against the consumption of cannabis for what is termed “recreational use.” From a medical perspective, however, marijuana (Cannabis sativa) has many applications: for the treatment of glaucoma, and the treatment of severe cancer pain, among many others. For years the AMA (American Medical Association) as well as the federal government denounced and denied the potential for Cannabis to be used medically.
It may interest you to know that even with this denial through the years, the FDA acquired the patent for Marinol, a synthetic derivative-replacement for Cannabis.
Sessions (on January 3) announced that he would be rescinding policies that advocated a “hands off” policy of feds regarding actions in states that legalized the use of marijuana. Federal law supersedes subsequently-created state laws; however, the problem is more than what it appears on the surface. The reasoning by Sessions was given as a way to combat illegal trafficking in marijuana, but the spillover will occur in the state-approved facilities used for genuine medical reasons. An article from the Daily Beast summarizes the new DOJ position on the Sessions maneuver:
The Justice Department itself had trouble explaining why Sessions was making his move now and what immediate ramifications there would be for the decision. In a morning teleconference with reporters, a senior DOJ official simply said that “U.S. Attorneys’ offices need to determine what cases need to be brought.” As to whether or not this decision would lead to more marijuana prosecutions, there was no definitive answer.
“I can’t sit here and say whether it will or won’t lead to more marijuana prosecutions,” one of the officials told reporters.
So, the “official’s” nebulous response is only too apparent: those with influence and those who pay more taxes into the system will (as par for the course) not be prosecuted. As for those others? Who knows what is in store for them.
“U.S. Attorneys’ offices need to determine what cases need to be brought.”
Is this not selective interpretation of the law? Deciding which ones will be brought to trial, and which ones will be ignored?
With liberty and justice for all, right?
So, Sessions is on a crusade that apparently leaves the “prominents” such as those mentioned earlier out of the loop. The last question is how much the administration either knows about or approves of such maneuvers. As can clearly be seen from the Uranium One example provided earlier, Hillary Clinton abused her position…and the “big” fish…Obama…squirmed out of the net completely. Interestingly enough, Clinton resigned after Benghazi…where a U.S. consular outpost and CIA annex were attacked and destroyed, and a U.S. ambassador and four of his staff were killed. Obama’s Teflon allowed those rotten eggs to slide right off the surface and onto Clinton’s head…and she resigned before any formal charges could be brought up while she was in office.
How much does this President know? Sessions did try to resign earlier, and the President did not accept his resignation. Surely that could be a ruse to show disagreement between the two, and distance the President from Sessions while the latter came under scrutiny for his meetings with the Russian ambassador. Yet Sessions is still in the DOJ’s top slot, isn’t he? It is unknown whether his changes are his own “reforms,” or rather, a reflection of administration policy.
Follow the money, and there will surely be a trail of some sort in Sessions’ direction. Follow any increases in his bank account, especially any contributions from GlaxoSmithKline, or the other pharmaceutical companies with a vested interest in keeping the public addicted to crippling opium-based painkillers such as morphine or oxycontin. Insys Therapeutics is a company that paid $500,000 in 2016 to quell cannabis-favorable initiatives in Arizona by contributing to the opposition groups. The company peddles Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid analgesic 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, and very addictive.
The final item to mention: Sessions owns investments in two mutual funds that hold stock in private prisons. In a financial disclosure to Congress in December of 2016, Sessions revealed that he owned Vanguard fund accounts…and Vanguard is the investment management company that owns the most stock in private prisons than in any other in the U.S. You can read more about it here.
Here’s a little more to interest you. This report from Nonprofit Quarterly explains how former aides to Sessions are in deep with the private prison industry. Here’s an excerpt from that report:
…NPQ wrote about the new memo from Attorney General Jeff Sessions that brought private prisons back into play on the federal level. We pointed out that stocks for private prisons plummeted when then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates ordered they be phased out last year. We reminded you that the day after Trump’s election, those stocks soared. Now, we read in The Nation that in October, just before the election, two of Sessions’ former Senate aides, David Stewart and Ryan Robichaux, became lobbyists for GEO Group, one of the two largest private prison companies, and that the two were specifically engaged to lobby on government contracting. The private prison industry has a big investment in the future of mass incarceration. Even more infuriating, much of that in the short term may be tied to immigration enforcement policies. “With respect to detention services,” said GEO Group CEO George Zoley on a recent call with investors, “we would continue to be the largest provider of detention services to the three largest government agencies—that is, ICE, the Bureau of Prisons, and the U.S. Marshals Service.
No “handwashing” or favoritism there, right? Wrong. Sessions’ rescinding of protection for citizens unable to pay fines from debtors’ prisons and his new crusade on marijuana will surely help to swell the ranks of new “serfs” within the private prison system. If he can do this and skate out of any conflict of interest? Then next he will be receiving something from the pharmaceutical companies to pursue an “attack dog” policy and shut down competition from Cannabis against their opioid analgesics. Sometimes there is no money trail initially, but it always surfaces with time. Business as usual in what used to be the United States of America.
Jeremiah Johnson is the Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces (Airborne). Mr. Johnson is also a Gunsmith, a Certified Master Herbalist, a Montana Master Food Preserver, and a graduate of the U.S. Army’s SERE school (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape). He lives in a cabin in the mountains of Western Montana with his wife and three cats. You can follow Jeremiah’s regular writings at SHTFplan.com or contact him here.
This article may be republished or excerpted with proper attribution to the author and a link to www.SHTFplan.com.
An entire party was arrested New Year"s Eve after cops claimed to have found some weed. Over 70 people were kidnapped and thrown in a cage.
(ANTIMEDIA Op-ed) — The National Rifle Association (NRA), which fancies itself a champion of the Second Amendment and gun rights, is nowhere to be found as state governments are moving to confiscate firearms from medical marijuana patients.
Police in Honolulu, Hawaii, recently sent out a letter to 30 medical cannabis patients warning them they had 30 days to hand over their guns. When medical cannabis becomes legal in Ohio in 2018, patients will not be permitted to own or possess firearms. Similar restrictions have been imposed in California and Oregon despite state policy, and they are not new.
In 2011, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive issued a warning that because cannabis is illegal at the federal level, patients cannot possess guns. “There are no exceptions in federal law for marijuana purportedly used for medicinal purposes, even if such use is sanctioned by state law,” the ATF said in 2011.
Despite the NRA’s vehemently opinionated stances on many issues, including whether or not suspected terrorists should have access to guns, the lobbying group had little to say at the time about the federal government’s infringements on cannabis patients’ gun rights, merely ‘reporting’ that “If a person admits marijuana use to a licensed firearm dealer, the dealer is prohibited from transferring a firearm to that person because the dealer will have a ‘reasonable cause to believe’ that the person is an unlawful user.”
The NRA has not responded to Anti-Media’s request for comment on the Honolulu police order for cannabis patients to turn in their guns (considering the organization’s proud support for law enforcement, this is unsurprising). In fact, the order came and went after public outcry condemned the gun grab. Honolulu police have since backtracked, saying they will not be confiscating guns but will be enforcing their policy against future cannabis users who would like to purchase a firearm.
Still, the country’s foremost representative of gun rights has had no comment.
This puts the NRA in a contradictory position. The organization has made it clear it believes the 2nd Amendment is intended to fight tyranny, an obvious reference to the American Revolution.
As Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s executive vice president, said in 2013:
“I think without any doubt, if you look at why our Founding Fathers put it there, they had lived under the tyranny of King George and they wanted to make sure that these free people in this new country would never be subjugated again and have to live under tyranny.”
But during the revolution, the American rebels were largely spurred to action because of their opposition unjust laws.
In 2017, a vast majority of Americans oppose the war on cannabis, especially with respect to medicinal uses. Even Republicans now favor legalization. Yet the NRA is nowhere to be found to speak on behalf of the people and the gun owners they claim to protect while an over-bloated federal government violates the constitution to punish people for non-violently possessing a plant.
Rather, the NRA prefers to express its eternal support for law enforcement — the enforcers of unjust laws — and seems content to ignore the federal government’s violations of marijuana users’ rights simply because the federal government asserts — through unjust and outdated laws — that the plant is illegal.
But assuming laws are akin to wisdom and morality is a dangerous practice, as demonstrated by a 2016 ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that reaffirmed cannabis use and possession is grounds for infringing on the 2nd Amendment.
The court case itself was rooted in legality. A gun shop owner refused to issue a gun to a medical marijuana patient in Nevada precisely because the plant remains illegal at the federal level. In the 9th Circuit Court panel’s opinion, they cited federal law, writing:
“Turning to federal firearms provisions, under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) no person ‘who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance’ may ‘possess . . . or . . . receive any firearm or ammunition.’ In addition, it is unlawful for ‘any person to sell or otherwise dispose of any firearm or ammunition to any person knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that such person . . . is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance.’”
In addition to citing legality, the panel claimed cannabis use “raises the risk of irrational or unpredictable behavior with which gun use should not be associated.”
In reality, research suggests violence and crime actually decrease in states that (illegally, according to the federal government) allow access to cannabis. In contrast, alcohol, a legal drug (according to the federal government), has well-documented, strong links to aggression, violence, and ‘irrational or unpredictable behavior.’ Because it is legal, however, gun access is not restricted to people who use the government-approved drug.
Though alcohol is far more dangerous than cannabis, alcohol gets a free pass because the federal government, which the NRA purports to mistrust, does not violently punish people for using it. The NRA remains silent when that same federal government, which, again, it believes its constituents might need to overthrow at some point, violates the 2nd Amendment. Rather than questioning laws as the glorified 18th-century American rebels did, the NRA prefers the government they mistrust simply enforce existing gun laws, like denying cannabis users their rights.
Apparently, the organization only believes in the notion of “shall not be infringed” if gun owners align with their own right-wing establishment views and law-and-order agenda, which often command submission to the very government they fantasize about overthrowing.
Op-ed / Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo
Americans overwhelmingly agree that marijuana should be legal, so why isn’t it? So glad you asked…
(FEE) In this era of political polarization, when Americans seem to agree on absolutely nothing, let me reassure you. We overwhelmingly agree that cannabis should be legal.
1 in 5 Americans have (state) legal access, 1 in 2 have experimented with it, and more than 1 in 10 smoke regularly. Southern California yuppies are publicly winning prizes for growing the same plant that landed Georgia teenagers in prison.
Half of states allow at least limited use, and a few attract elite cannabis tourism. Federally, the drug remains fiercely criminalized, despite irrefutable evidence of its medical value.
So what’s the hold-up?
Being in the anti-marijuana business is astonishingly lucrative for bureaucrats and campaign donors. Here are just a few of the heavy hitters addicted to federal prohibition:
Big Booze:
National Beer Wholesalers Association
Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America
The makers and distributors of America’s top-selling beers, wines, and liquors are already facing stiff competition from newly deregulated microbrewers and craft distilleries.
Cannabis prohibition shuts out a zero-calorie competitor with far fewer short- and long-term health risks. The industry donated (read: invested) $19 million to re-election campaigns in 2016, and another $4 million to soft money groups like “Public Safety First” which specifically oppose cannabis legalization efforts.
Cannabis legalization does reduce alcohol sales, and its regular use reduces alcoholism and alcohol-related deaths. Each year 37,000 deaths in the US are attributed to alcohol, compared to zero deaths from cannabis use, ever. Brewers and distillers are eager to point “public health and safety” attention in another direction.
The Boys in Blue:
National Fraternal Order of Police
National Association of Police Organizations
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
Local law enforcement has become highly dependent on federal and state money devoted to the War on Drugs. Civil asset forfeiture – a legacy of the 1984 drug war omnibus crime bill – allows local police departments to keep 80 percent of property seized in suspected (not proven) drug activity. Local cops regularly auction off homes and cars connected with small marijuana sales, pocketing the proceeds without convicting anyone of any crime. Drug raids “were no longer just about putting on a good show and terrorizing the counterculture. Now the raids could generate revenue for all of the police agencies involved.” (Randy Balko, Rise Of The Warrior Cop). Property stolen from innocent Americans (the Washington Post found 80 percent of victims of asset forfeiture were never even charged) has paid for military-grade equipment and SWAT teams used in still-more-terrifying drug raids for profit.
National Fraternal Order of Police, National Association of Police Organizations, Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, and literally dozens of smaller interest groups and political action committees represent the interests of law enforcement officers. Drug testing laboratories, prosecutors, drug court lawyers and judges, rehab centers, counselors, and other unionized social services also depend on marijuana arrests to keep numbers up.
For them, the nation’s outdated marijuana policy means guaranteed revenue, low-risk, peaceful “offenders” to fill arrest quotas, and easy excuses to search or detain citizens.
Big Brother: The Prison Industrial Complex
Association Of Administrative Law Judges
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America)
Private prison companies and state institutions alike lobby for longer mandatory sentences; stricter enforcement; younger, healthier, and less violent prisoners. Corrections jobs are a major source of rural employment.
Prisons contract for an occupancy rate, charging taxpayers for unmet quotas. More Americans are arrested for marijuana annually than for all violent crimes combined. More Americans are in prison than ever before, and since 1985 at least half the increase is drug offenders alone.
Increasingly, lobbyists for drug testing centers and addiction treatment providers have sought to have marijuana dependence (for which there is limited medical evidence) perceived – and insured – as a medical condition. Compulsory and court-ordered treatment for this “addiction” is a reliable source of revenue for unscrupulous operators.
What violent crime remains is largely a product of drugs prohibition. Cash-oriented transactions between known lawbreakers (drug deals) don’t make for peaceful business practices.
All smuggled goods and illegal sales share the same vulnerability to violence. Now, Budweiser and Coors might sue to resolve a contract dispute; in 1929, criminal rum runners settled scores with Molotov cocktails and Tommy guns. Violent deaths of police officers peaked during prohibition and fell rapidly after its repeal; the number of officers wouldn’t approach that level again until the year Nixon declared the War on Drugs.
The violence of black markets still unnecessarily mars American neighborhoods, and unprecedented mass incarceration plagues the conscience of the Land of the Free.
Big Pharma:
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA)
Pharmaceutical industry products are expensive, and many have life-altering side effects. Cannabis can be grown by the patient and has far fewer and less severe side effects.
Before President Ford shut down cannabis research at universities, scientists had noticed cannabis’s effectiveness in reducing seizures, relieving pain, even shrinking tumors. Specialized strains are bred to treat depression, anxiety, nausea, Parkinson’s, and dozens of other common conditions for which patients currently take patented pills.
Despite continued denials by the federal government that marijuana has any accepted medical uses, the government’s own researchers have patented a synthetic cannabinoid called Marinol. Patent No. 6,630,507 credits “The United States of America as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services” and lists federal researcher as “inventors” of “cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants.” The patent reads “cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and HIV dementia.” A dozen other derived chemicals are in development to treat nerve pain, memory loss, traumatic brain injury, arthritis, hypertension, and obesity.
Since this patent was granted in 1999, The Drug Enforcement Administration has twice renewed its stance that cannabis has “no currently accepted medical use.”
Big Government:
American Federation of Government Employees
National Active & Retired Federal Employees Assn
American Federation of Government Employees
Marijuana prohibition is a $20 Billion annual federal jobs project. Departments and agencies will not give up power or budgets voluntarily. The DEA seized $27 Billion in assets in 2014 through its cannabis enforcement program, in excess of its $3 Billion annual budget. 10,000 DEA employees, 63,000 Federal Prison System employees, border guards, and thousands more “interagency” positions funded by the expansive, failed War on Drugs don’t want to see their budget downsized or authority curtailed.
Similarly, the CIA, NSA, State Department, and Department of Defense also rely heavily on public acceptance of the War on Drugs as a pretense for overriding national sovereignty around the world. In their bullying of Latin American leaders and control of opiate fields in the Levant, drug suppression money is often both carrot and stick.
Liberty vs. Lobbyists
Doing battle against big government and corporate cronies like the criminals above is more satisfying than punching Nazis and more practical than protesting. The American people are fed up with prohibition and the failed War on Drugs.
Ending prohibition has something for everyone:
What can possibly unite an impossibly divided America? A serious push to end prohibition.
By Laura Williams / Creative Commons / FEE.org / Report a typo
This article was chosen for republication based on the interest of our readers. Anti-Media republishes stories from a number of other independent news sources. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect Anti-Media editorial policy.
(ANTIMEDIA) Las Vegas, NV — A few months after recreational cannabis became legal in Nevada, Las Vegas now has its very own weed drive-thru.
The NuWu Cannabis Marketplace is a cannabis “megastore” recently opened by the Paiute tribe. It is located on tribal lands and takes up 16,000 square feet, making it the largest dispensary in the area. The massive store employs over 100 people and offers a wide variety of cannabis products, including concentrates, edibles, vape pens and cartridges, pre-roll joints, and topical treatments.
NuWu recently took a former bank window and converted it to a drive-thru, hoping to get each customer in and out in under 90 seconds. They launched the new service earlier this month and apparently found immediate success. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported:
“The converted, $30,000 bank vault window outfitted with bulletproof glass had seen about 60 customers by 3 p.m., according to Kevin Clock, who represents the tribal investing partner Cascade Strategic Investments.”
Clock says nearly 300 cars pass through the drive-thru on any given day, served by former employees of fast-food chains.
It is lined with security cameras and, pursuant to the state’s strict laws, still requires customers to be over 21 and show identification.
“We want all customers to have that same experience of being able to get in and get out,” said Benny Tso, chairman of the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe. “It’s about speed and convenience.”
The drive-thru came largely in response to demands from disabled and elderly people who have trouble getting in and out of their cars. According to the Las Vegas Sun, the drive-thru offers 15 varieties of “flower, edible, and concentrate products.”
NuWu opened in October after enduring the lengthy process to obtain a license. The recreational cannabis program received criticism earlier this year for prioritizing liquor vendors in its issuance of licenses to sell cannabis.
Nevertheless, NuWu appears to be thriving.
“We just wanted to be able to play with the big dogs up here,” said Benny Tso, chairman of the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe.
Clock says their drive-thru is the first of its kind in the country with regard to recreational cannabis. There is also a garage-style drive-thru in Colorado and a medical marijuana drive-thru in Arizona.
(ANTIMEDIA) Ontario, Canada — Two former top law enforcement officials in Canada who previously campaigned against cannabis legalization are now going into the business.
CBC News reports that Former OPP commissioner, MP, and federal Conservative cabinet minister Julian Fantino and former RCMP deputy commissioner Raf Souccar launched a business Tuesday that aims to connect medical patients with quality cannabis. The launch comes eight months before Canada legalizes recreational weed.
The news is particularly noteworthy because both men previously issued harsh rebukes of legalizing the plant. CBC noted:
“Both men spent decades battling illegal drug use in their law enforcement careers, with Fantino going as far as equating legalizing marijuana to legalizing murder while serving as Toronto’s chief of police in 2004.”
However, the duo credits science and their interactions with patients with changing their minds.
Souccar said they were “persuaded by the science and by real life stories.”
Their decision to go into the cannabis industry has drawn some criticism. British Columbia MP Don Davies said it created the appearance of a conflict of interest because Souccar had served on the legalization task force. “The optics of task force members, within a short period of time of their task force duties, going into that very business for personal profit… I think it’s problematic,” he said.
However, Souccar and Fantino’s intentions appear to be genuine.
“It was an opportunity I never had before, I was too busy enforcing the law. It brought about a huge change in me.”
“Souccar said his previous impression of medical marijuana users were that they wanted to use cannabis and used medical reasons as a ‘guise,’” CBC explained, “but after meeting them, found that he ‘could not have been more wrong."”
“Fantino’s about-face on marijuana came, he said, during his time as Minister for Veterans Affairs, when he met veterans suffering from issues like post-traumatic stress disorder.“
He said veterans “came and lobbied me to enable them to access medical marijuana as a substitute to opioids” and changed his mind after conducting his own “fact-finding” mission. Their company’s doctors will not prescribe opioids. Rather, they say they to be a part of the solutions to the crisis, which has swept Canada as well as the United States.
Their Aleafia Total Health Network will operate as “health delivery system.” They will not have any actual cannabis on hand but already enjoy a clientele numbering roughly 100 patients. They launched their first storefront in Vaughan, Ontario, on Tuesday.
“The purpose of the clinic is to do the assessments,” and provide complementary treatments like physiotherapy, Fantino said. “We’re not in the marijuana business. We’re a health delivery system.”
They will also be working with researchers and producers to facilitate research on the benefits of cannabis.
Both men say they now support recreational cannabis “with conditions” and would be open to using medical marijuana if a doctor prescribed it to them.
They join a growing group of law enforcement in the U.S. and Canada who have changed their position on prohibition.
The future of medicine rests on the fundamental right we all have to use things that spring from the Earth naturally as healing agents. Why should cannabis, used for at least 10000 years by humankind to alleviate suffering, be excluded from this inexorable mandate?
The politics of cannabis are exceedingly complex, and yet the truth is simple: this freely growing plant heals the human body – not to mention provides food, fuel, clothing and shelter, if only we will let it perform its birthright. In a previous article, we investigated the strange fact that the human body is in many ways pre-designed, or as it were, pre-loaded with a receptiveness to cannabis’ active compounds — cannabinoids — thanks to its well documented endocannabinoid system.
But the medical-industrial complex in the U.S. does not want you to use these freely growing compounds. They threaten its very business model and existence. Which is why it synergizes so naturally with the burgeoning privatized prison sector, which now has the dubious title of having the highest incarceration rate in the world. The statistics don’t lie:
“far surpassing any other nation. For every 100,000 Americans, 743 citizens sit behind bars. Presently, the prison population in America consists of more than six million people, a number exceeding the amount of prisoners held in the gulags of the former Soviet Union at any point in its history.”
According to a recent Al-Jeezera editorial, “One explanation for the boom in the prison population is the mandatory sentencing imposed for drug offences and the “tough on crime” attitude that has prevailed since the 1980s.”
Cannabis/marijuana is presently on the DEA’s Schedule 1 list. Since 1972, cannabis has been listed on the Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, the most tightly restricted category reserved for drugs which have “no currently accepted medical use”. Opioids, stimulants, psychedelics and a few antidepressants now populate this list of substances that can put you in jail for possessing without a prescription.
The notion that marijuana has no ‘medicinal benefits’ is preposterous, actually. Since time immemorial it has been used as a panacea (‘cure-all’). In fact, as far back as 2727 B.C., cannabis was recorded in the Chinese pharmacopoeia as an effective medicine, and evidence for its use as a food, textile and presumably as a healing agent stretch back even further, to 12 BC.[1]
When it comes to cannabis’ medical applications, cannabis’ ‘healing properties’ is a loaded term. In fact, it is extremely dangerous, as far as the medical industrial complex goes, who has the FDA/FTC to enforce it’s mandate: anything that prevents, diagnoses, treats or cures a disease must be an FDA approved drug by law, i.e. pharmaceutical agents which often have 75 or more adverse effects for each marketed and approved “therapeutic” effect.
Indeed, the dominant, drug-based medical system does not even acknowledge the body’s healing abilities, opting for a view that looks at most bodily suffering as fatalistic, primarily genetically based, and resulting from dysfunction in the mechanical design of a highly entropic ‘bag of enzymes and proteins’ destined to suffer along the trajectory of time.
And so, an at least two trillion dollar a year industry stands between you and access to the disease alleviating properties of this humble plant.
As Emerson said, “a weed is an herb whose virtues have yet to be discovered,” and yet, by this definition, cannabis is not a weed, but given that is has been extensively researched and used for thousands of years for a wide range of health conditions, it should be considered and respected as a medicinal herb and food. Sadly, the fact that the whole herb is non-patentable is the main reason why it is still struggling to gain approval from the powers that be.
Let’s look at the actual, vetted, published and peer-reviewed research – bullet proof, if we are to subscribe to the ‘evidence-based’ model of medicine – which includes over 100 proven therapeutic actions of this amazing plant, featuring the following:
Moreover, this plant’s therapeutic properties have been subdivided into the following 40+ pharmacological actions:
Thanks to modern scientific investigation, it is no longer considered strictly ‘theoretical’ that cannabis has a role to play in medicine. There is a growing movement to wrench back control from the powers that be, whose primary objectives appear to be the subjection of the human body in order to control the population (political motives) — what 20th century French philosopher Michel Foucault termed biopower, and not to awaken true healing powers intrinsic within the body of all self-possessed members of society. Even the instinct towards recreational use – think of the etymology: to re-create – should be allowed, as long as those who choose to use cannabis instead of tobacco and alcohol (and prescription drugs) do not cause harm to themselves or others. How many deaths are attributed to cannnabis each year versus these other societally approved recreational agents, not to mention prescription drugs, which are the 3rd leading cause of death in the developed world?
Ultimately, the politics surrounding cannabis access and the truth about its medicinal properties are so heavily a politicized issue that it is doubtful the science itself will prevail against the distorted lens of media characterizations of it as a ‘dangerous drug,’ and certainly not the iron-clad impasse represented by federal laws against its possession and use. All we can do is to advocate for the fundamental rights we all possess as free men and women, and our inborn right towards self-possession, i.e as long as what we do does not interfere with the choices and rights of others, we should be free to use an herb/food/textile that sprouts freely and grows freely from this earth, as God/Nature as freely made available.
I think people need to be educated to the fact that marijuana is not a drug. Marijuana is an herb and a flower. God put it here. If He put it here and He wants it to grow, what gives the government the right to say that God is wrong?
~ Willie Nelson
“Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn’t the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit . . . unnatural?” – Bill Hicks
[1] Marijuana – The First Twelve Thousand Years
© October 27, 2017 GreenMedInfo LLC. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of GreenMedInfo LLC. Want to learn more from GreenMedInfo? Sign up for the newsletter here http://www.greenmedinfo.com/greenmed/newsletter.
The post Why Cannabis Is The Future Of Medicine appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
Pot smokers, environmentalists, and just plain humans: take notice.
A recent article in The Atlantic reveals highly toxic pesticides are being used on illegal pot farms in California, and the runoff is poisoning forests.
I’ll quote extensively from the article and then make comments:
“Secret growers are taking advantage of the state’s remote stretches of public land—and the environmental impact is severe.”
“…this past November, [California] residents voted ‘yes’ on Proposition 64, making California the fifth state to legalize recreational pot. Almost two-thirds of the country’s total legal harvest comes from the Golden State…” [poisoned pot shipped everywhere]
“The lethal poisons growers use to protect their crops and campsites from pests are annihilating wildlife, polluting pristine public lands, and maybe even turning up in your next bong hit.”
“…grow sites tested positive for carbofuran, a neurotoxic insecticide that is so nasty it has been banned in the U.S., Canada and the EU. Farmers in Kenya have used it to kill lions. Symptoms of exposure range from nausea and blurred vision to convulsions, spontaneous abortions, and death….”
“Some 50 different toxicants have turned up at grow sites… Growers use the poisons to keep rodents and other animals from eating the sugar-rich sprouting plants, from gnawing on irrigation tubing, and from invading their campsites in search of food. Acute rodenticides cause neurological damage and internal bleeding. Animals literally drown in their own blood or stumble around until they’re eaten themselves, passing the poison up the food chain to predators like owls and fishers.”
“’It’s a massive problem,’ says Craig Thompson, a wildlife ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service. ‘People don’t tend to grasp the industrial scale of what’s going on. There are thousands of these sites in places the public thinks are pristine, with obscene amounts of chemicals at each one. Each one is a little environmental disaster’.”
“Gabriel [biologist] and Thompson fear the poisons could spread far beyond each grow site and contaminate the water supply of towns and cities far downstream. The toxicants can leach into the soil and linger for years. Using water monitors, Gabriel has already found organophosphates—nerve agents used to make insecticides and certain types of chemical weapons—several hundred meters downhill from grow sites.”
“’These guys aren’t growing for the legal recreational market or medical dispensaries—they’re growing to exploit a black market somewhere,’ says Mark Higley, a wildlife biologist with the Hoopa Tribe in Humboldt County, whose reservation has seen an explosion in illegal grow sites. While there is no proof that illegal pot ends up in the burgeoning legal market, many familiar with the industry suspect it does.”
“Law enforcement officials think many trespass grows are set up [on government land] by Mexican drug cartels, which prefer to ship marijuana from state to state rather than smuggle it over the international border. Growers arrested during raids are often undocumented immigrants in their 20s from Michoacan, experienced in covert agriculture and hard living. They earn around $150 a day for two-to-four months, much more than they would at a farm or winery.”
“Captured growers sometimes claim their employers are holding their families hostage until the harvest is collected. Whether or not that’s true, they’re motivated to protect the crop. Hendrickson estimates between a quarter and half of raids turn up some kind of weapon, from crossbows to automatic rifles. He has found elevated sniper positions set up near grow sites.”
“Just walking through rows of plants coated with toxic chemicals can be enough to bring on symptoms like lethargy and headaches—let alone spending hours cutting them down in the hot sun under the wash of a helicopter. Gabriel [biologist] and his employees have started getting monthly blood tests to check for pesticide exposure.”
“Some chemical threats are more immediate. At one site Gabriel was inspecting an unfamiliar container full of aluminum phosphide, a poisonous powder used to kill rodents and insects. It had gasified and built up pressure in the heat of the sun. When he touched it, it exploded in his face. Luckily he was wearing a hazmat respirator.”
“’My biggest fear is that some kid will come across one of those bottles,” Thompson says. ‘Carbofuran is pink, it looks like Pepto, like candy. Can you imagine what a five-year-old would do with that?’”
—-end of Atlantic excerpt—
So the contamination and the poison are in the land, in the water, in animals, and in the marijuana people smoke.
This is not the first time, in recent years, that pot has been found to contain pesticides. A quick search will turn up a number of articles. However, the level of toxicity here in these California pot farms is extreme, to say the least.
Where are the growers buying their banned pesticides? Mexico? On the black market in the US?
How can pot smokers be sure they’re smoking clean product? For example, are legal dispensaries working with proper labs to test many, many samples? In these tests, how many pesticide compounds are covered? How many aren’t?
Over time, stories like the one in The Atlantic come and go, and people forget them. But that would be a mistake.
People who use marijuana often reply to stories like this with the claim they know that a great deal of pot is pure, and their suppliers are ethical. One hopes that’s true, but is it?
If some, most, or all of these highly contaminated pot farms in California are run by Mexican drug cartels, don’t expect state or federal law enforcement to solve the problem. It isn’t going to happen. The resources aren’t there, and neither is the determination.
The government of California considers the state to be a sanctuary for illegal immigrants. So how is the government going to stop some of these immigrants from becoming illegal pot growers who deploy highly dangerous chemicals on a daily basis?
As for the California forests and rivers, government agencies are far behind the curve. The illegal growers are, in effect, staging wide-ranging random attacks on the environment.
This has nothing to do with a “progressive attitude” toward pot.
It has everything to do with criminals seeding the land with poison.
And it is yet one more consequence of the unchecked and unprosecuted growth of the pesticide industry, in which, over many decades, corporations have been manufacturing and selling all sorts of heinous poisons—“better living through chemistry”—reversing centuries of agricultural practice that fed populations good clean food.
Jon Rappoport is the author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.
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