The Drug War Refugees

Los Angeles Times ^ | February 2, 2003 | Eric Bailey

[MrLeRoy]

[…] Now a new breed of American refugee has arrived, seeking asylum from a different kind of war--the fight over medical marijuana. […] The effort languished until 1988, when the chief administrative judge at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration made a startling ruling: Marijuana had a place in medicine. Judge Francis L. Young declared it unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for the federal government to stand between "sufferers and the benefits of this substance."

DEA officials quickly rejected Young's ruling, and the courts backed them. […]

[MrLeRoy]

Wod_list ping

[coloradan]

Judge Francis L. Young declared it unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for the federal government to stand between "sufferers and the benefits of this substance."

Unfortunately that is exactly what they do - and they very good at it.

[Cultural Jihad]

The Drug War Refugees

Another related issue is the growth of voting propositions to tag marijuana as a medicine. Interestingly for the Centers for Disease Control, these ballot initiatives are springing up around liberal arts colleges. How it is that there are apparent cancer clusters near American college campuses? Should the Feds get involved in a "Clean Your Cancerous Bong Water" educational campaign?

[jmc813]

WOD Ping

[philman_36]

Lurkers?

[coloradan]

Should the Feds get involved in a "Clean Your Cancerous Bong Water" educational campaign?

So long as it the the duty of the Federal Government to nanny every single person from cradle to grave, threats to individual liberties notwithstanding, I suppose they should.

[PaxMacian]

Tag?
How blind to our own absurdity are we when we in the twenty first century that we must vote on the medicinal properties of a healing herb thoroughly documented throughout the ages.

How sad that an individual is imprisoned for possession of a flower from the garden of God because it may alter the thoughts in that individual in a manner deemed inappropriate by corporate pawns seeking to maintain the efficiency of their chattel.

"The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them." --Thomas Jefferson, 1774.

[bassmaner]

How blind to our own absurdity are we when we in the twenty first century that we must vote on the medicinal properties of a healing herb thoroughly documented throughout the ages.

How sad that an individual is imprisoned for possession of a flower from the garden of God because it may alter the thoughts in that individual in a manner deemed inappropriate by corporate pawns seeking to maintain the efficiency of their chattel.

Expect nothing less than lies, name calling, misdirections, strawman arguments, etc. etc. from the usual suspects: the FR Woddie peanut gallery brigade (CJ, Dane, KC, Roscoe, etc. etc.).

[jayef]

The WODBOTS.

[Eagle Eye]

And the proven medicinal use for alcohol is what, exactly?

And for tobacco?

Considering that these both directly to far more deaths and illnesses than does marijuana, why do you protest against marijauna and not against tobacco and alcohol?

Why don't you strive to reinstate alcohol prohibition?

[citizenK]

Here's the conclusion of the article, nicely stated:

Each year in America, about 750,000 people are arrested for pot crimes. According to a 2001 federal study, marijuana is one of America's biggest cash crops, legal or illegal, fetching $10.6 billion annually on the black market. Richard Cowan, a marijuana activist who moved to Vancouver out of contempt for the U.S. drug war, says America needs to be reminded what this fight is all about.

"It isn't about being drug free," Cowan argues. "It's about being free."

Doesn't the US government have better things to do than harass peaceful people who use mj?

Walters and his ilk should save their angst for drugs that pose a greater (real) risk to public health. But it's not about public health is it? It's about power, control, and the political agendas of mindless government bureaucrats and politicians.

[Cultural Jihad]

How sad that an individual is imprisoned for possession of a flower from the garden of God ...

Not where I live. No one has been arrested for mere possession or use in the past 30 years. If your results are different then you have many options available to you: Change the law. Gripe about the law with a overly-dramatic flair. Move. Or stay.

[philman_36]

Not where I live. No one has been arrested for mere possession or use in the past 30 years.
Where do you live? Your homepage doesn't state which State (US) or nation/country you're from. I'd like to look into your claim.
Without that key bit of information you can claim anything.

[Cultural Jihad]

California.

[philman_36]

Not where I live. No one has been arrested for mere possession or use in the past 30 years.

Prop 36 Reduces Felony Drug Possession Prison Admissions 30 Percent in 2001 while Drug Possession Arrests on Rise Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, 1622 Folsom Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
Arrest numbers for drug possession offenses in California are an essential element of this discussion. With the introduction of SACPA, law enforcement officials and others expressed concern that drug possession arrests as a whole would decrease. Lacking the means to put drug offenders behind bars, it was thought that police would either not respond to issues of drug misuse, or else tack on frivolous charges in order to keep individuals detained.
The most recent data from the CDC reports that this has not been the case. As seen in Figure 2, while felony drug possession admissions to California state prisons have experienced a significant decrease, total arrests for drug possession in the state continued to increase from 124,211 to 125,066 in the year 2001. Charges for violent and property crimes have increased in 2001, but not outside the trends of increased incarceration for these offenses across the state in general.

Where do you get your information from? This is information from the last two years!

[philman_36]

CALIFORNIA REMAINS ABOVE NATIONAL AVERAGE IN DRUG OFFENDER IMPRISONMENT, NEW STUDY SHOWS. Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice
San Francisco, CA: An update to the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice study entitled Drug Use and Justice 2002: An Examination of California Drug Policy Enforcement reveals that California continues to lead the nation in drug offender imprisonment. The study also reveals that California counties that most vigorously pursued harsh enforcement strategies did not experience greater declines in drug use or crime.
http://www.cjcj.org/pdf/cadrug2002.pdf to "Drug Use and Justice 2002: An Examination of California Drug Policy Enforcement"
However, in the 1990s, nearly all drug arrest increases were for low level possession offenses. By 2001, half of all drug arrests were for low-level misdemeanors.
Care to modify your statment in light of these new facts?

[philman_36]

An interesting side not...
The recent, large increases in imprisonment for drug offenses show no discernable impact on crime rates. Rather, the pattern is a random one, with most high-incarceration counties showing no reduction in violent or property crime categories relative to low-incarceration counties.

[A CA Guy]

Surprising, another gateway drug thread.
I would have thought that pro-illegal-drug threads would be rare on a conservative forum. I know they are on all the liberal sites like DU though. How is this one here?

Next thing you know some anarchist will show up to defend illegal drug use in the name of the Constitution or some such insanity.
This is just so surprising. I know these people in favor of this can't be those wacky Libertarians again can they. The one-note party of drugs. Must be the French...

[philman_36]

Another interesting tidbit...
As in other areas of crime control, during the past 20 years California implemented an unprecedented social experiment in its attempt to suppress illicit drug use. By emphasizing law enforcement strategies based on deterrence and incapacitation theories, the state's drug-offender prison population rose from 1,778 in 1980 to 45,328 in 2000 before declining to 43,998 in 2001, after Proposition 36 took effect. However, these policies were not adopted uniformly across the state, as shown by distinct county-by-county variations.

You really need to research this stuff before you make such wild claims...