If Cops Really Oppose Sending Minor Pot Offenders To Jail, Then Why Do They Vehemently Oppose Efforts To Keep Us Free?

Voters in Massachusetts will decide this November on Question 2, which seeks to replace criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana with a civil fine of no more than $100. Polls show that nearly three-out-of-four voters back the measure.

Who opposes it?

That’s an easy one. Who else?

Officials unite to fight marijuana initiative
via The Boston Globe

Law enforcement officials statewide are uniting against a referendum question they fear will increase marijuana use among teenagers and generate more crime across the state.

The state’s 11 district attorneys are unanimously opposing Question 2 and are being joined by police chiefs and some community groups, fearing it will undo years of effort to reduce drug use among teenagers.

… “Nobody goes to jail today for simple possession of marijuana,” said Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett, who is listed as the treasurer for the opponents, who are using the name Coalition for Safe Streets during the campaign.

Hmmm, where have I heard this before? Oh yeah.

The irony and the idiocy
via the NORML blog

Just days before the FBI released statistics indicating that police in 2007 arrested over 872,000 Americans — the most ever reported in law enforcement history — for violating pot laws, reigning Drug Czar (and pathological liar) John Walters alleged on C-Span, “We didn’t arrest 800,000 marijuana users. … That’s [a] lie.”

(Watch the video of Walters’ remarks here.)

The Czar’s nose grew another six inches when he uncorked this whopper: “The fact is today, people don’t go to jail for the possession of marijuana. Finding somebody in jail or prison for possession of marijuana is like finding a unicorn. It doesn’t exist.”

(The video can be seen here.)

Pardon me if I’m confused. On the one hand, you have law enforcement claiming that nobody goes to jail for pot possession. On the other hand, you have law enforcement actively opposing any and all efforts to reform America’s marijuana laws so that, in fact, nobody would actually go to jail for pot possession.

Question: Why do cops vehemently oppose measures that seek to comport the law in line with what they claim is already standard prosecutorial practice?

Is the answer:

a) The cops are full of it; people go to jail for violating marijuana laws all the time.

b) If cops stopped arresting minor pot offenders they wouldn’t know what else to do with their time.

or c) Most cops really believe marijuana consumers are “dirt bags” and “losers” who belong in jail.

Answer: Take your pick!

‘Snapshot’ Of A Day During Cannabis Prohibition In America

Like so many others these days, I use Google to aggregate news related to cannabis every hour, of every day, from all around the world. Hundreds of cannabis-related articles, columns, editorials, cultural reviews and legal cases; academic, medical and scientific papers, everyday!

I’m always amazed at both the number and scope of cannabis-related ‘news’ that now conveniently lands hourly not only at my desk, but on my iPhone as well. What I usually see through bias eyes when viewing these daily news feeds is how utterly futile it has become (probably always was to begin with) to try to enforce cannabis prohibition in free market-oriented democracies.

Just look at a Google news feed ‘snapshot’ below from midday yesterday to see if you see what I’m seeing…

Google News Alert for: marijuana

Marijuana investigation continues
Steamboat Pilot – Steamboat Springs,CO,USA
By Melinda Dudley (Contact) Steamboat Springs — Future arrests are possible as the Routt County Sheriff’s Office continues to investigate a major marijuana …

Authorities destroy $64 million in marijuana off Carmel Valley Road
The Salinas Californian – Salinas,CA,USA
Monterey County authorities are looking for suspects connected to a large marijuana field found off Carmel Valley Road. County sheriff’s deputies and …

Fremont police find six pounds of marijuana in, under home
Inside Bay Area – Oakland,CA,USA
By Ben Aguirre Jr. FREMONT — Police recovered more than 6 pounds of marijuana from a South Sundale neighborhood home early Monday after someone tipped …

Drug agents raid pot farms in upscale Calif. homes
San Jose Mercury News – CA, USA
AP SACRAMENTO—Drug agents say they have arrested six key players in a Sacramento-based drug ring that was growing hundreds of marijuana plants in upscale …

Border Patrol agents seize nearly 2000 pounds of marijuana
KVIA – El Paso,TX,USA
Upon further investigation, agents discovered 1915 lbs. of marijuana worth approximately $1532704 inside the 2006 Ford F-250 truck. …

Coast Guard seizes 336 pounds of marijuana
OCRegister – Santa Ana,CA,USA
By JON CASSIDY CORONA DEL MAR – A US Coast Guard cutter based in Corona del Mar picked up four bales of marijuana weighing roughly 336 pounds after a chase …

Marijuana growing operated seized in Randolph County
Kirksville Daily Express and Daily News – Kirksville,MO,USA
The task force, partnered with the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Randolph County Sheriff’s Department, discovered 40 growing marijuana plants, …

Several Arrested In Marijuana Sweep
KQCA, My58.com – Sacramento,CA,USA
Several people were arrested Tuesday in connection with indoor marijuana-growing operations in exclusive neighborhoods El Dorado Hills, Cameron Park and …

Helicopters collect marijuana plants with nets
Victorville Daily Press – Victorville,CA,USA
The marijuana eradication operation combines efforts of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department with the state Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement’s …

Marijuana-growing operation discovered on farm
Sauk Centre Herald – Sauk Centre,MN,USA
Investigators also discovered marijuana was being grown on the property. Ahrens had felony warrants out in Wright, Douglas and Stearns Counties

Now, proponents of prohibition and the status quo may view the above example (which typifies a daily news feed re ‘cannabis’, ‘marijuana’ and ‘hemp’) as examples of successes in the government’s war against some drugs. But, however, one can also be tasked to empty an ocean with a spoon…

When looking at the numerous cannabis busts (one every 37 seconds in America…), tonnage of cannabis interdicted and eye-popping domestic cannabis plant eradication numbers reported daily via Google, one has to wonder why a simple, effective, low tech solution like a tax stamp issued at the retail level (like the way state and federal governments control—and profit from—alcohol and tobacco product sales to adults) is not preferable to the incredibly ineffective, constitution-warping and police and military personnel-endangering policies fostered under prohibition?

In a blog to be posted later this week, the answer to my rhetorically asked question above was partially revealed this week on Capitol Hill.

BTW, the media and its role in cannabis prohibition will be discussed in detail at NORML’s soon approaching national conference. Registrations and vending tables are still available, but going quickly!

The Irony And The Idiocy

UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!!

You can now listen to the archived audio of my Sept. 16th appearance on Dr. Drew Pinsky’s radio show by visiting: westwoodone.com or by clicking here. We discuss the record number of pot arrests for 2007, the presidential candidates’ positions on drug policy, and debate whether Drug Czar John Walters is a “reasonable” man.

Just days before the FBI released statistics indicating that police in 2007 arrested over 872,000 Americans — the most ever reported in law enforcement history — for violating pot laws, reigning Drug Czar (and pathological liar) John Walters alleged on C-Span, “We didn’t arrest 800,000 marijuana users. … That’s [a] lie.”

(Watch the video of Walters’ remarks here.)

The Czar’s nose grew another six inches when he uncorked this whopper: “The fact is today, people don’t go to jail for the possession of marijuana. Finding somebody in jail or prison for possession of marijuana is like finding a unicorn. It doesn’t exist.”

(The video can be seen here.)

Question: Why does the Drug Czar feel obligated to go to such absurd lengths to hide the fact that the criminal prohibition of cannabis is responsible for the arrest of hundreds of thousands of otherwise law-abiding Americans every year?

After all, the US Drug Enforcement Administration and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy typically issue chest-thumping press releases when they achieve record busts for offenses involving cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine? Why then do they shy away from making similar proclamations for pot?

Perhaps it’s because, deep down, even the Drug Czar knows that the use of cannabis does not pose anywhere near the health and safety threat as does the use of other intoxicants, including alcohol, and that most Americans — rightly — would be outraged to learn that our nation’s so-called war on drugs is really just an assault on young adults caught with small bags of weed.

872,721 marijuana arrests in 2007, up 5.2% from 2006

By Russ Belville, NORML Stash

Record Number Of Americans Arrested For Marijuana

The FBI has released its annual report on Crime in the United States 2007. Once again, the number of people in the United States arrested for marijuana has gone up. 872,721 Americans were arrested for marijuana in 2007, and of those arrests, 89% or 775,138 were arrests for simple possession – not buying, selling, trafficking, or manufacture (growing).

Get Graphics Code

This represents an increase in marijuana arrests of 5.2% from the previous year and the fifth straight year marijuana arrests have increased from the previous year. Now a marijuana smoker is arrested at the rate of 1 every 37 seconds and almost 100 marijuana arrests per hour.

(more…)

Presidential Candidates On Drugs

Lest folks think that NORML is unfairly biased toward one political party over another, let me reiterate that NORML and the NORML Foundation are required by law to be non-partisan.

(I state this position, again, in response to recent posts proclaiming, inaccurately, that NORML is either pro-Democrat or pro-Republican. In truth, neither of these positions are true, and in fact, NORML’s endorsement of any party, including Greens or Libertarians, would be illegal.)

By contrast, the NORML PAC can raise funds to contribute to “pot-friendly” political officials at the local, state, or federal level. Since 2001, the NORML PAC has contributed over $37,000 to select politicians. These public officials are not selected because of their political party affiliation; they are selected because they have each made exceptional efforts to liberalize America’s antiquated and punitive marijuana laws.

Unfortunately, none of the four major Presidential or Vice Presidential candidates are prior recipients of NORML PAC funding — nor is it likely any of them will be in the future.

On the Democrat ticket, Presidential candidate Barack Obama has flip-flopped twice on the issue of decriminalizing marijuana (replacing arrests and jail terms with small fines) for adults. Although he has made statements supporting an end to federal interference in state medical marijuana laws, he has also expressed skepticism that cannabis has demonstrable therapeutic value, and has said that he would only favor its use under “strict” controls. As a Congressman, Obama has made little-to-no effort to advance marijuana law reform, and has championed various federal anti-drug provisions to increase drug law enforcement efforts both domestically and overseas.

By contrast, Obama’s running mate, Delaware senior Senator Joe Biden — as noted here, here, here, and here — has a 35-year record regarding the drug war, almost all of it disgraceful. Biden’s most recent verbal support in favor of medical cannabis notwithstanding, the bottom line is that the Senator is a primary architect of the federal policies that have brought us: mandatory minimum sentencing in drug crimes, random workplace drug testing for public employees, the 100-to-1 crack versus powder cocaine sentencing ratio, the creation of the Drug Czar’s office, the RAVE Act, and America’s modern federal anti-paraphernalia laws (the statute that comedian Tommy Chong ultimately spent nine months in prison for violating). Most recently, Biden endorsed a nationwide ban on smoking, and he espoused the use of mycoherbicides such as Fusarium oxysporum — a genetically engineered fungal plant killer — in illicit crop eradication efforts.

Predictably, the Republican candidates are no better. During his 26 years in Congress, Arizona senior Senator John McCain has consistently voted in favor of stricter drug enforcement in America and abroad, endorsed Nancy Reagan’s vapid “Just Say No” mantra, backed mandatory minimum sentences and even the death penalty for certain drug offenders, and has repeated scoffed at the notion of medical marijuana, even going so far as to turn his back on bonafide patients.

McCain’s VP pick, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, has by far the most limited record on drug policy. Like Obama, Palin is an admitted former pot smoker. However, unlike her running mate, Palin may have some sympathy for medical cannabis patients, having served as the Governor of one of the twelve states that has a legal therapeutic cannabis program and chosen not to speak out against it.

In short, both party’s veteran candidates (McCain and Biden) are positively awful on drug policy, while the younger generation (Obama and Palin) may offer reformers at least some minor glimmer of hope.

Bottom line: regardless of who wins the Presidency, marijuana law reform will still be waged primarily on the state and local level — where our support and our victories — continue to grow.