Making the Case for Medical Marijuana

[Vashta Nerada]

NYPD Busted Using 'COPS' Clip in Campaign Against 'Weaponized Marijuana'
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/nypd-busted-using-cops-clip-campaign-weaponized-marijuana


The New York Police Department faced criticism on Thursday after it emerged that video clips it used to show the crazed affects of smoking synthetic drugs were of men high on other drugs.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/06/us-new-york-police-marijuana-idUSKCN0QB2HW20150806


The NYPD confirmed on Thursday that the men in the videos, which were previously used in police training, were in fact high on other narcotics.

New York Police Chief of Patrol Carlos Gomez, at a press conference on Thursday, said the videos were meant to show drug users in an "excited delirium syndrome state" which is another made-up police term with no basis in medical science.

The NYPD is frequently deceitful, but rarely is it as hilariously so as it was yesterday, when Commissioner Bill Bratton, during a press conference about the perceived dangers of so-called "synthetic marijuana," showed video he said was of "out-of-state" officers arresting a man under the influence of the drug, but which was actually a dude on PCP pulled from a 2003 episode of COPS.
http://justice.gawker.com/nypd-footage-of-crazy-synthetic-weed-user-was-actually-1722366247

[Vashta Nerada]

Man Who Was Serving Life In Prison For Marijuana To Be Set Free

Jeff Mizanskey, a 61-year-old Missouri man who was serving life in prison for nonviolent marijuana offenses, will be set free in a matter of days, his attorney confirmed Monday to The Huffington Post.

After two decades in prison, Mizanskey became eligible for parole in May when Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon commuted his life sentence. Parole was an option that Mizanskey did not have previously because he had been sentenced as a "prior and persistent drug offender" under Missouri's three strikes law, which was repealed last year.

All three of Mizanskey's offenses involved marijuana. He was given a life sentence after a conviction for attempting to sell about six pounds of pot in a 1993 police sting operation.

Marijuana offenses, mainly involving simple possession, account for roughly half of all drug-related crimes. According to a recent report from the American Civil Liberties Union, 88 percent of the more than 8 million marijuana arrests between 2001 and 2010 were for possession alone. There were more arrests in the U.S. for marijuana possession in 2011 than for all violent crimes combined, according to the FBI's uniform crime report.

While the U.S. accounts for just 5 percent of the world's population, it is home to a full 25 percent of the world's prisoners. Harsh sentences for nonviolent drug possession and distribution crimes are part of the reason that figure is so high. In 1980, there were roughly 40,000 drug offenders in federal and state prisons and jails, according to research from the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice reform group. By 2013, the number of drug offenders behind bars had ballooned to nearly 490,000 -- most of whom were not high-level operators and did not have prior criminal records.

It's difficult to calculate the human toll of all those incarcerations, some of them decades long. But by some national estimates, it costs state and local governments between $10 billion and $20 billion a year just to maintain the prohibition on marijuana.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeff-mizanskey-marijuana-parole_55c92395e4b0923c12bdf3ae

[patric]

For the DEA head to be this clueless is nothing short of a scandal:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dea-medical-marijuana-fact-check_563d1148e4b0b24aee4a5c4f

[heironymouspasparagus]

For the DEA head to be this clueless is nothing short of a scandal:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dea-medical-marijuana-fact-check_563d1148e4b0b24aee4a5c4f

You cannot possibly be surprised...

[Townsend]

Obama administration to justices: Reject marijuana lawsuit

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-admin-urges-high-court-reject-marijuana-lawsuit-235240243.html

WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite its opposition to making marijuana use legal, the Obama administration is urging the Supreme Court to reject a lawsuit from Nebraska and Oklahoma that seeks to declare Colorado's pot legalization unconstitutional.

The Justice Department's top courtroom lawyer said in a brief filed Wednesday that the interstate dispute over a measure approved by Colorado voters in 2012 does not belong at the high court.

Nebraska and Oklahoma filed their lawsuit directly with the Supreme Court in December 2014, arguing that Colorado's law allowing recreational marijuana use by adults runs afoul of federal anti-drug laws. States can sue each other in the Supreme Court, a rare instance in which the justices are not hearing appeals of lower court rulings.

The two states complained that Colorado's action has hindered efforts to enforce anti-marijuana laws in their states. They say combatting marijuana that's coming across the border is a drain on their resources.

But Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. said Nebraska and Oklahoma are not alleging that Colorado "has directed or authorized" anyone to transport marijuana across state lines.

"At most, they have alleged that third-party lawbreakers are inflicting those injuries, and that Colorado's legal regime makes it easier for them to do so," Verrilli wrote. Taking up the dispute "would represent a substantial and unwarranted expansion of this court's original jurisdiction."

Verrilli's brief also notes that Colorado only allows people to possess one ounce or less of marijuana. Such small quantities carried across the border don't cause the states "to suffer great loss or any serious injury in terms of law-enforcement funding or other expenditures," Verrilli wrote.

The Obama administration "steadfastly opposes legalization of marijuana," The White House says on its website. But the administration also has said that it would not stand in the way of states that want to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana as long as there are effective controls to keep marijuana away from kids, the black market and federal property. The Justice Department says it simply doesn't have the resources to police all violations of federal marijuana law, and so it will focus on those priorities.

The Drug Policy Alliance, a group that advocates for less restrictive drug laws, praised the administration's move.

"Nebraska and Oklahoma's primary problems are their own punitive policies regarding marijuana use and possession," said Art Way, the group's Colorado state director. "It is not Colorado's fault these states look to spend such a high degree of law enforcement and judicial resources on marijuana prohibition."

[heironymouspasparagus]

For the DEA head to be this clueless is nothing short of a scandal:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dea-medical-marijuana-fact-check_563d1148e4b0b24aee4a5c4f

Further look at the guy shows he is a leftover from the Bush years - council to Ashcroft and Mueller.  Participants in the premise that torture is legal...remember the good ole days..?


http://www.dea.gov/about/leadership.shtml

[patric]

The guys collecting petition signatures have been at 21st & Harvard all week, in the QT parking lot.

I didnt know there was also a petition to allow Oklahoma to get back to allowing industrial hemp (like clothing etc.) again.

[patric]

This is essentially the end of Oklahoma's lawsuit against Colorado (as far as the SCOTUS is concerned)
http://www.care2.com/causes/the-u-s-goverment-comes-to-colorados-defense-in-legal-pot-lawsuit.html

but lets see how much more tax money the AG throws at it anyway:
http://newsok.com/oklahoma-attorney-general-scott-pruitt-says-obama-administration-wrong-about-colorado-pot-laws/article/5468088

that sure sounds like he's actually suing Obama.   

[Townsend]

Fear not!  AG Pruitt is on the case!

Oklahoma AG Goes to Court to Stop Colorado Pot

http://publicradiotulsa.org/post/oklahoma-ag-goes-court-stop-colorado-pot

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP)” Oklahoma's attorney general says his state and others are suffering from the export of marijuana from Colorado and wants the U.S. Supreme Court to consider whether Colorado's pot market violates federal law.

Attorney General Scott Pruitt filed a brief Wednesday in the case in which Oklahoma and Nebraska want the nation's highest court to declare Colorado's pot legalization unconstitutional.

The U.S. Department of Justice has argued that Colorado isn't directly responsible for third-party lawbreakers who traffic marijuana and that there's not sufficient reason for the high court to consider the challenge.

Pruitt claims Colorado has created a "massive criminal enterprise" and is actively facilitating the purchase of marijuana by residents of neighboring states.

Pruitt blames President Barack Obama's administration for not enforcing federal drug laws.

[patric]

"Pruitt blames President Barack Obama's administration for  (fill in the blank)"

[patric]

Exploding Marijuana killing so many people we cant count.

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/dabs-comes-east-coast-media-freaks-out

[cannon_fodder]

All of this reminds me of my ongoing fight with my kid over his video game habit. No video games until homework is done, plays video games, dad adds filter, kid gets around it, dad adds a firewall, kid crashes firewall, dad takes computer...

But at the end of the day, I know why I have the rule. Without the rule my child will not get his homework done. So the cycle continues.

Uncle Sam keeps treating citizens like children. In opposition to what one might expect, the more "small government" conservative the politician, the more lip service you get to "protecting" the children from themselves and the less likely they are to sit back and examine the underlying rule. All they know is that there is a rule, and some of those pesky little bastards aren't following it.

[patric]

Uncle Sam keeps treating citizens like children. In opposition to what one might expect, the more "small government" conservative the politician, the more lip service you get to "protecting" the children from themselves and the less likely they are to sit back and examine the underlying rule. All they know is that there is a rule, and some of those pesky little bastards aren't following it.

All prohibition really protects is the industry created to wage an endless, expensive war we were never intended to win.

[RecycleMichael]

All of this reminds me of my ongoing fight with my kid over his video game habit. No video games until homework is done, plays video games, dad adds filter, kid gets around it, dad adds a firewall, kid crashes firewall, dad takes computer...

But at the end of the day, I know why I have the rule. Without the rule my child will not get his homework done. So the cycle continues.

Uncle Sam keeps treating citizens like children. In opposition to what one might expect, the more "small government" conservative the politician, the more lip service you get to "protecting" the children from themselves and the less likely they are to sit back and examine the underlying rule. All they know is that there is a rule, and some of those pesky little bastards aren't following it.

Give Uncle Sam back his computer.

[patric]

Three of the four marijuana-centered lawsuits filed against Colorado officials and businesses were organized and at least partially funded by out-of-state anti-drug organizations and socially conservative law firms, a Denver Post analysis shows.

Supporters of the law that made the recreational use and sale of marijuana legal in Colorado say the money gives outsized influence to secretive coalitions of drug-rehab professionals, for-profit prison owners and others with a financial stake in keeping pot illegal.

http://www.denverpost.com/marijuana/ci_29391588/who-exactly-is-behind-lawsuits-over-colorados-legal