In the cities of Kalamazoo, Michigan and Tacoma, Washington, municipal voters overwhelmingly favored local ballot measures to mandate that the criminal enforcement of cannabis possession offenses be law enforcement’s “lowest priority.”

In Tacoma, voters decided in favor of Initiative 1, which states that minor marijuana offenses shall be “the lowest enforcement priority of the City of Tacoma.”

In Kalamazoo, voters approved a similar ‘deprioritization’
measure by a margin of almost 2 to 1.

Given that one out of two Americans now favor outright legalizing the adult use of the marijuana plant, and given that voters have consistently voted in favor of similar ‘deprioritization’ measures before (e.g., Seattle, 2003; Oakland, 2004; Columbia, Missouri, 2004; Santa Cruz, 2006;Denver, 2007; etc.) last night’s results are hardly surprising.

Equally unsurprising is the response from local law enforcement, whose public comments once again belie the myth that ‘police just enforce the laws; police don’t make the laws.’

Marijuana amendment will have little effect on law enforcement in Kalamazoo, chief says
via The Kalamazoo Gazette

Little, if anything, about how his officers do their job will change, Kalamazoo Public Safety Chief Jeff Hadley said Wednesday, less than a day after city residents voted to make possession of a small amount of marijuana the lowest priority for police.

“I certainly respect the democratic process,” Hadley said. “It certainly gives you an insight to what some of the voters are thinking in terms of their views on marijuana. However, it really has little to no impact on how we operate at Public Safety.”

The ballot measure, which amends the city charter, was overwhelmingly endorsed by voters Tuesday, with 65 percent giving their approval.

The ballot question voters approved Tuesday was: “Shall the Kalamazoo City Charter be amended such that the use and/or consumption of one ounce or less of usable marijuana by adults 21 years or older is the lowest priority of law enforcement personnel?”

Hadley reiterated Wednesday what he has said previously about the ballot measure, which is that it will have no effect on his agency because the city charter only addresses ordinances and marijuana possession and use are illegal under state and federal law, which will continue to be enforced.

“The charter amendment only has an impact on city ordinances, which we do not have any existing city ordinances relative to the possession or use of marijuana and we still have every obligation to enforce state and federal laws,” the chief said.

For further analysis on law enforcement’s resistance to marijuana law reform, please see NORML Outreach Coordinator Russ Belville’s excellent, archived commentary on The Huffington Post here.

Along the way to becoming one of America’s wealthiest individuals, Mr. Bloomberg has donated a remarkable amount of money to many worthy causes, notably in the field to improve public health in America and the world, most especially at his alma mater, one of the best universities in the world, Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

With good health and continued good fortune, who knows what further impact Mr. Bloomberg will choose to make in national politics in his lifetime? He possess all the requisite skills and resources to become president if that’s what he chooses.

Today we find out that Mayor Bloomberg is once again demonstrating why he is one of the most interesting and charitable politicians in the modern era in reading today’s New York Times about his most recent donation of $30 million to help black and Latino youth get better integrated into the region’s economy, develop valuable skill sets and to find productive employment.

The Times reports that Mayor Bloomberg’s initial grant will be matched by New York City-based hedge fund manager and philanthropist George Soros.

Here is the ironic point to this blog post: If Mayor Bloomberg is genuinely serious about creating more favorable employment environs for black and Latino youth in New York City, he should converse with Mr. Soros, who, has donated more money than anyone on the face of the earth in favor of drug policy reform—notably for cannabis law reforms—who, I’m sure would insist that the good mayor stop arresting black and Latino youth in New York City en mass.

Regrettably, embarrassingly, for such an enlightened and civic-minded man, Mayor Bloomberg has largely maintained the shameful and starkly racially disparate cannabis law enforcement policies that he inherited from former Mayor (and drug prosecutor) Rudolf Giuliani. Mayor Giuliani exploded the annual cannabis arrest rate in the five boroughs of New York City from an average of about 2,000 arrests to an eye-popping 60,000 arrests per year.

Bloomberg’s administration has, on average, maintained an annual arrest rate for simple cannabis possession cases over 45,000, with a disturbing ninety percent of arrests happening to….black and Latino youth.

Mayor Bloomberg, please, listen to Mr. Soros and stop arresting and negatively effecting future employment opportunities for an entire generation of minorities in New York City who got caught doing the same thing you did in your more youthful years.

And look how well you turned out after using cannabis?

Why deny over 45,000 other New Yorkers (and tourists) annually the opportunity to pursue their life’s goals and dreams just because, like you, absent an arrest for your cannabis use, they chose to use a little ganja to relax? Unfortunately for them and New York taxpayers, they’re getting permanently scarred by your feckless and expensive Cannabis Prohibition law enforcement practices in Gotham.

Mayor Bloomberg, your generous and thoughtful donation of $30 million—and that of Mr. Soros’—will be working at cross purposes if you continue to give the green light to the NYPD to arrest 45,000 cannabis consumers annually into the criminal justice system, the vast majority of whom are the very population you’re concerned with.

Mr. Bloomberg, if you’re worried about saving face or “what does the NAACP think about all of this?”, don’t be. Because, hundreds of thousands of cannabis consumers and tourists in New York City will very much appreciate the change in policy and the NAACP now supports changing America’s antiquated Cannabis Prohibition laws.

Mayor Bloomberg, please magnify the positive impact of your philanthropy and concerns for civil society by ending the practice of ‘collaring’ cannabis consumers in New York City, and, instead, return to the cost effective and less detrimental practice to cannabis consumers (notably for minorities) by simply issuing a civil fine in the form of a written ticket for cannabis possession cases rather than employ valuable police time and resources unnecessarily arresting so many black and Latino cannabis consumers.

If states were allowed to experiment with models of decriminalization and legalization they would be able to re-prioritize law enforcement to more effectively combat violent crime. Every 12 seconds a house is burglarized in the United States, with only an estimated 13 percent of these criminals ever being brought to justice. Meanwhile, a marijuana smoker is arrested every 35 seconds in this country. The process of which can take a police officer off of the street for hours. With 1.3 million violent crimes and 9.3 million property crimes being committed annually, you have to ask yourself:

Do you know where your police are?

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Steve gets it. The audience gets it. According to all polling, in excess of 90% of U.S. citizens broadly believe the ‘war on drugs’ is a failure (75% support medical access to cannabis. 73% support decriminalizing adult possession for cannabis; and 46% support cannabis legalization outright).

When will the two major political parties and presidents—like Obama—get it?

According to polling last week, President Obama is quickly falling out of favor with the Millennial generation that helped sweep him to power in 2008. Lest President Obama forget who brought him to the dance, he might want to look at the clear discontent—across all party lines—with the way the federal government has been conducting drug warring, notably its full-throat perpetuation of antiquated and tax-draining Cannabis Prohibition policies.

Instead, he should deliver a clear message for supporting a system of legally controlling cannabis, rather than deny economic reality, waste taxpayers’ money and constantly face embarrassing questions about a failed public policy that has long festered in the public’s mind.

President Obama should endorse a ‘drug peace’ where cannabis is legally controlled like alcohol products; patients can access a safe and non-toxic naturally occurring medicine; and farmers, entrepreneurs and consumers in America can benefit from industrial hemp production.

President Obama, NORML and tens of millions of cannabis consumers and lovers of liberty ask you not to re-commit us to war against ‘weed’, but, instead, to re-think the leaf.

By David Edwards of Raw Story

President Barack Obama said Friday that the U.S. would not be ending its war on drugs under his watch.

“Much is being asked of our generation,” a doctoral student named Steve told the president at a town hall event in Maryland. “So, when are our economic perspectives going to be addressed? For example, when is the war on drugs in society going to be abandoned and be replaced by a more sophisticated and cost effective program of rehabilitation such as the one in Portugal?”

“I have stated repeatedly — and it’s actually reflected in our most recent statement by our office of drug policy — that we need to have an approach that emphasizes prevention, treatment, a public health model for reducing drug use in our country,” Obama said. “We’ve got to put more resources into that. We can’t simply focus on interdiction because, frankly, no matter how good of a job we’re doing when it comes to an interdiction approach, if there is high demand in this country for drugs, we are going to continue to see not only drug use but also the violence associated with the drug trade.”

After several minutes of explaining U.S. efforts to help Mexico fight transnational drug dealers, the president got to the point.

“Just to make sure that I’m actually answering your question, am I willing to pursue a decriminalization strategy as an approach? No.”

“But I am willing to make sure that we’re putting more resources on the treatment and prevention side,” Obama added.

Watch the video from MSNBC, broadcast July 22, 2011 here.

Call it what ever you choose, but it is that time of year again to see where and in what quantities the DEA claims it whacks and stacks outdoor and indoor cannabis eradicated within America's borders, even though, as noted below, the DEA stopped honestly reporting the ratio of World War II-era feral hemp eradicated to actual cultivated cannabis plants (for recreational or medical uses) in 2006.]

by Matthew Donigian, NORML legal intern, University of Illinois — College of Law

In the most recent DEA Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program Statistical Report, the DEA indicated that over 10 million marijuana plants throughout the United States were destroyed by the agency. According to this report, most of the eradicated plants were found in California, followed by West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Washington State. The states with the least eradicated plants were Rhode Island, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Delaware.

The report also detailed the number of eradicated plants that were being cultivated indoors. The states with the highest number of eradicated indoor plants were California, Florida, Washington, Michigan, and Ohio. California is the obvious leader here, since its highly successful medical marijuana market has been the primary target of DEA operations. However, proponents of merciless penalties for cultivation of marijuana in Florida may be surprised to see the state in the number two spot, ahead of both Michigan and Washington State, two of the largest medical marijuana jurisdictions.  It seems that the policy touted by supporters as the silver bullet to large-scale marijuana production in the state has failed.

This should not come as a surprise to those familiar with the rhetoric supporting the failed War on Drugs. For the past 40 years, the federal government has promised decreased crime, overdose deaths, and addiction rates as a result of the punitive and prohibitive approach of the war and drugs, but has failed to deliver these results. In 2009, Florida drastically increased its penalties for cultivation of marijuana, which punish the cultivation of 25 or more marijuana plants with up to 15 years of imprisonment. Much like federal marijuana prohibition, increasing penalties in Florida in order to decrease cultivation has been an abject failure. In the most recent DEA eradication report, Florida ranked second in eradicated indoor marijuana plants, with 51,366 plants eradicated in 2010, only 1265 fewer plants than were eradicated per year from 1998-2008 (on average).  In addition there were nearly 500 more arrests associated with marijuana eradication in 2010 than there were on average between the years of 1998-2008.

In addition, since 2006, the report excludes statistics on the number of “ditchweed” or non-cultivated feral marijuana plants, eradicated each year. According to the DEA, eradication of ditchweed is still taking place but the agency refrains from reporting the number of eradicated plants, making it difficult to estimate the resources spent on this practice. The federal government seems to have misinterpreted criticism that the practice was a waste of resources; critics were not upset with the governments reporting of “ditchweed”, but rather the practice of seeking out and burning non-smokeable and non-cultivated cannabis plants. The last published eradication data for “ditchweed” indicated that over 200 million or 98 percent of all plants eradicated were feral marijuana. The current practice of non-reporting provides the American people with little information on where DEA resources are being utilized, and effectively hides the amount of money spent on an unintelligible practice.  

Increasing penalties against marijuana crimes and eradicating marijuana plants does nothing to prevent the use of marijuana. Since the war on drugs began the potency of marijuana has increased, as has the amount of marijuana grown. Similarly, the war on drugs has not even been effective at reducing teenage use. According to the National Institute on Drug abuse 41.7% of 12th graders had tried marijuana in 1995. By 2008 this number rose to 42.6%.

Marijuana prohibition has clearly failed. Hiding eradication statistics and putting responsible people in jail will not change that.

Online Magazine for Grandparents Releases Response Results to Op-Ed Question Posed in its March/April Issue

St. Petersburg, FL. (PRWEB) May 26, 2011

Attitudes about the criminalization of marijuana may be changing among the elders of our society, as the more than 70 million of the baby boomer generation, one to widely experiment with recreational drug use, have and will become grandparents.

GRAND Magazine, the online magazine for today’s grandparents, released today results from their poll question which appeared in the March/April issue. It asked readers if it was time to legalize marijuana. 85% responded that they agreed it was.

The reader respondents who are pot proponents argued in their responses that it is hypocritical to outlaw pot when cigarettes, alcohol and fat-laden foods are legal but account for so many health issues among our population. They point out that marijuana is used to treat medical symptoms such as pain and nausea, and that in some states it is legal for shops to dispense medical marijuana. The billions that are spent in the U.S. on policing and courts related to this issue could be spent on better schools or infrastructure.

Grandparents who are part of the baby boomer generation (those born from 1946 to 1964)(1) have a unique perspective on marijuana, having come of age during a time when pot use became mainstream. 21st century grandparents are a group with a significant influence on the country’s youth as they are the primary caregivers for more than 6 million children(2). In fact, approximately 75 percent of all non-parental care of children is provided by a grandparent(3), representing a large shift in family dynamics. Now it seems that as they guide and influence new generations, they view marijuana use increasingly as a harmless indulgence rather than a gateway to a lifetime of drug abuse.

Among the reader response comments were:

“I am a grandparent strongly in favor of decriminalization. I would much rather my grandkids smoke pot than use cigarettes or alcohol. I expect I will need cannabis for my health soon and don’t want (it) to be illegal. The whole charade needs to stop; we are blowing far too much money on the drug war and have no positive results to show for it. The whole approach is counterproductive,” said D.W., Guysville, OH.

“I am a grandparent of a 17 year-old granddaughter who has been struggling with drug addiction since she was 14 years old. I believe that marijuana is a gateway drug and it has always been her reluctance to give up pot that has brought her back again and again to more dangerous drugs. I understand that the same arguments that have been used for years with the responsible adult consumption of alcohol apply to responsible adult use of pot. … I would vote against legal sale of marijuana…,” said A.C.

To read additional reader responses, click here (http://www.grandmagazine.com/article.asp?id=485)

The link to the page in the GRAND magazine March/April online edition op-ed reader poll that asks, ‘Is it time to legalize marijuana?’ is: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/grand/20110304_v3/index.php#/51/OnePage

GRAND Magazine

GRAND magazine is an online bi-monthly magazine that serves the more than 70 million U.S. grandparent market. It is delivered exclusively in digital format. It is published by GRAND Media, LLC, which was established in 2004. For more information about GRAND magazine visit: http://www.GRANDmagazine.com.

1. U.S. Census Bureau

2. American Community Survey, 2007, U.S. Census Bureau

3. State Fact Sheet for Grandparents and Other Relatives Raising Children, 2007, AARP Foundation, Brookdale Foundation Group, Casey Family Programs, Child Welfare League of America, Children’s Defense Fund, and Generations United

###

For the original version on PRWeb visit here.

Excerpt from ‘An Hour with the Drug Czar‘:

The Editorial Board’s meeting with Gil Kerlikowske turned into a big deal. Kerlikowske, the former police chief here in Seattle, is now director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. In other words, he’s the “Drug Czar” — a title he made fun of in our meeting when he responded to a question by saying, “If I knew the answer, I’d be more than a czar. I’d be king.”

In the paper of Sunday, Feb 20, The Times published an editorial arguing that marijuana be legalized, regulated, taxed and sold by the state of Washington. Two days later we received a request from Kerlikowske’s office that he wanted to talk to us; he could pay a visit March 4 at 2:45 p.m. Sure, we said.

Clearly this was because of our editorial. I recalled a year ago, when I wrote a column saying that legalization was coming, and that I favored it, that I received a call from Kerlikowske’s office for the first (and only) time. The Director would like to talk with me, the woman said. Would I be available at 3:00 the following afternoon? Yes, I said, I would. I wondered if he was going to chew on my ear, but in the event he missed the call, and instead sent me a copy of a speech he had given to police chiefs in San Jose.

This time around, the word got out, probably through me, that he had asked to speak to the Times Editorial Board. Dominic Holden of The Stranger called me and asked me about it and put out a report on their blog, The Slog. Holden quoted me accurately, but his headline framed Kerlikowske’s visit as an attempt to “bully” The Seattle Times. It was a stretch to call it that. Holden wrote that it was “an apparent attempt by the federal government to pressure the state’s largest newspaper to oppose marijuana legalization. Or at least turn down the volume on its new-found bullhorn to legalize pot.”

NORML, The National Organization to Reform the Marijuana Laws, picked up the story from The Slog. Paul Armentano, deputy director of NORML, portrayed Kerlikowske’s visit as an effort to “squelch” our mainstream-media voice.

Later on Friday, Mr. Kerlikowske was interviewed on KCTS…

For this ‘crime’ against the state he was sent to prison, lived in halfway houses, suffered through probation and dozens of drug tests, and, if that was not enough, the government wanted even more flesh in the form of Ellis’ beloved farm. As if arrest, prison, probation and drug test were not enough, the government also wanted Ellis property.

Eight years after Ellis’ arrest, the final chapter on the incident appears to have been written last week at an auction house sixty miles from the scene of the ‘crime’.

The question for many is, was the crime cultivating medical cannabis or the government ‘stealing’ Mr. Ellis’ property? In their misdirected war against cannabis consumers, every year in America tens of billions of dollars in cash and other valuable assets (i.e., land) are seized by states and the federal government.

Rather than twist the beautiful and freedom-giving US Constitution into a pretzel when trying to seize a citizen’s land for an act most citizens don’t consider a crime, let alone a major crime, state and federal government should employ a constitutional-friendly, non-adversarial, logical and decidedly low tech way to cease the legal sophistry of so-called ‘civil’ forfeiture for cannabis-related ‘crimes’: tax stamps (the same way far more deadly and addictive products like tobacco and booze are legally controlled).

To medical cannabis activists: This is a long note I sent out this morning to the 500+ people who have followed my eight year battle with federal weasels for the crime of growing cannabis and giving it away to four terminally ill neighbors. I hope that this story illustrates once again the importance of your work and the necessity for strong and persistent voices for science, common sense and compassion. Keep up your good work and I will try to do the same. Bernie Ellis, MA, MPH

——

Good (really) early morning, all y’all. It is just past 4:20 am Friday morning in my Tennessee deep hollow home as I start this message, though I have already been up an hour. I’ve already had my quart of coffee, my quiet time on the porch with my two dogs and the young brown bats that play tag above my head on my front porch, before the sun gets up. I have soaked in the claw-foot tub, and dressed for the day, in shorts, work-boots and (for the moment) my favorite t-shirt from 10,000 Waves out west in the other Santa Fe (NM), on the high road up their mountain.

Most of the pieces I share with all y’all about my life and my views, both considerably colored by my eight year dance with federal weasels over my federal medical marijuana case, have been written quickly, as soon as the incident or the urge allows. This one, for several reasons I am well aware of, has taken longer to start. What follows is (and will be) my memory of witnessing our government sell part of my farm for the crime of growing pot … and giving it away to four dying neighbors.

I could have written this down Wednesday evening, but instead I sat around a friend’s kitchen table, with his wife and his kids, to let the day out somewhere I would not be alone (and where I would certainly be understood). These folks have been my friends for 30+ years and they are the most complete married couple I know. They were the right place to start this process Wednesday evening.

I also could have written this any time yesterday – Thursday. Instead, I took advantage of our recent three inch rain to pull more pliant weeds in my late summer Garden all day, to begin the process of building my bookend compost piles, to the north and south of my raised-bed rows, with the offal, the refuse, the wild growth (what little of it) still inhabits my 40+ year organic bread-basket that breaths just beyond my front-porch — my Garden. She kept me busy and distracted almost all day (with the help of some donated sour diesel from a Nashville friend that provided more reflective fuel for my internal fire). The more time I spent with Her,the more it was clear that She had been neglected by me in the past minutes and seconds, as my hip and the impending loss of my land intervened. Yesterday, I began to make amends to Her and we worked together for hours, Her donating the random weeds that had sprouted in Her presence and me accepting them as a deposit on next year’s abundance.

So, after two days of cogitating, here goes. On Wednesday, I drove 60 miles – one way – to witness our government sell some of my land at what should have been the final chapter in my fight to save my farm. The thing is, in saving most of my farm, I have learned just how far my country – or the fundamental, freedom-loving foundation of it – has been lost in our war on (some) drugs. So read and weep (or get mad as hell) and let me hear from you. All y’all — my flesh-and-blood and virtual friends, my fellow warriors for science, common sense and compassion, my fellow protectors and benefactors of the Goddess (and the rest of you too.)

Here goes ….
—–

It was early when I got up Wednesday, but not too early. The forced sale of my 25 acres (as a plea bargain to save the remaining 147 acres) was not happening until 1:45 pm and it was just now 5:30 am. But the joys of living in my country include ritual, both of necessity and of intention, and my rituals spread out in front of me to fill the hours before my trip north began. No rain yet (three weeks dry here, in almost constant 110 degree heat index, brutal), so I spent an hour hosing cold spring water onto the two late summer Garden rows – the ones with alternating sweet corn and cantaloupes, with one section of sunflowers and another of late yellow crook-neck squash. Soaking them down as much as possible, them and my out-of-place baby watermelons, beginning to look like they just might feed me (and others) yet. Time to (not) kill, time to breathe.

Getting centered is always good, and it was good on Wednesday. In truth, I had been preparing for this day for eight years but, since the government had sprung the sale out of the blue last month, it was still something I was not really prepared for. (As my late (psychiatrist) daddy used to say, “the healing of a fractured relationship does not begin with the separation, but the divorce.”) At that moment, though, the 25 acres was not still mine (having signed it over to the weasels in December), but it was not yet someone else’s. That was coming now, though, like a freight train.

One good thing about recovering from my hip surgery is that I have become more intentional with my time away from the farm. So today, knowing that I would have to drive north of Nashville to lose my land, I made a list of everything that needed doing in Nashville. Delivering a big sack of sweet basil to a new friend to feed her sons, returning books and movies (“Apocalypse Now”) to an older friend, making copies at Kinko’s and eating green curry at the International Market. There was more (other) stuff to do, and so I left the land by mid-morning.

The drive to Nashville always provides two choices – follow the Natchez Trace on its secluded gentle roller-coaster ride along the “Path of Peace” or take Old Hillsboro road. The second choice allows me to drive a little bit faster, and to stop in Leiper’s Fork, which I did for gas. Another hour or so in and around Nashville completing the chores and there was nothing left to do but show up to the sale. For all that I had done to distract myself, I was still the third one there.

It remains weird that the feds had chosen not to sell my land actually – you know – on the land. Maybe they knew that their extortion of me still rubbed my neighbors, as well as the local media and medical marijuana activists in lots of places, the wrong way and that some of them might show up to shine a “shame on you” light on their activities. Certainly the fact that my neighbors had spent weeks tearing down the gaudy yellow “auction” signs the feds had paid to litter around our back roads, depositing them at the head of my driveway each morning, might have given them a clue. So, for whatever reason, the feds bundled my land with four other sales and conducted the auction as far from my farm as they could get. I am sure they will claim efficiency as their motive – I will always and forever claim it was chicken-shit.

When I arrived at the tidy brick house near an industrial park in Whites Creek, the auctioneers had just started unloading their papers and other equipment. There were a few folks there, including one (a new neighbor I had just met in the weeks leading up to the sale) who had told me he would bid. Then I noticed another neighbor, a carpenter who had built the sun-porch on my home, who was there with another friend of his in hopes of getting the land too. There were at least three other groups of folks, a young man with a “Co-op” hat and his dad, two husky country-looking boys probably in their 40s and an withered old man standing next to a G. Gordon Liddy look-alike. All those folks had made the drive to bid on my land, and they made up two-thirds of the crowd.

In addition to taking bids there, these very efficient auctioneers (who had told me they do a “lot of this” for the government, so they knew their deal) were equipped to accept on-line and phone bids. But they were there to move fast, and then to move on.

Two of the five pieces sold before mine, both nice homes in nice neighborhoods in Clarksville and Nashville. The second one, an almost 3,000 square foot home that looked very substantial and well-maintained in the photos at the auction, went for less than $20,000 – in less than two minutes. Everyone there looked as amazed as me. I would know in a minute just what my land would bring.
—–

But, first, as background (and to introduce a little suspense), let me remind all y’all that my surrendering this 25 acres was to prevent a “summary judgment” decision by my federal judge to give the feds my entire 172 acre farm or to place a permanent $250,000 lien on my property to satisfy our government’s view of justice in my case. Justice that, in their opinion, had not yet been satisfied by my $60,000 in legal bills $500,000 in lost salary, eighteen months in a federal Bureau of Prisons halfway house and three years ever since unemployed.

For the crime of growing seven pounds of pot and giving it away to four terminally ill neighbors, a crime that I never denied I committed from the moment that two helicopters and ten four-wheelers descended on my farm. One big lesson here – if you cooperate with the feds, they will want to know just how much bull-shit you can take. (Obviously I can take a lot)

Our final plea agreement, in which I surrendered the 25 acres, saved the rest of my farm and saved me from having to live under the burden of a $quarter-million$ lien for the rest of my life. The feds agreed to take whatever they could get for the 25 acres, in return for which they agreed to get out of my life. (More on that later.)

At the time of our plea agreement, the feds’ appraiser had estimated that the 25 acres was worth between $170,000 – $220,000, and that appraisal (I am sure) is what turned the tide toward a final resolution last December. Now back to the sale.

—–

The bidding on my land opened with an on-line bid — of $30,000. (My guess is that this bid came from Arizona, where two other new friends who had already bought 15 acres from me that fronted the 25 acres (for $125,000, two years ago) were trying to protect their rears – and mine.) People whistled in the crowd, and a few jumped in with slightly higher bids. But there was to be no feeding frenzy here today. The bidding quickly stalled, the unseen internet bidders fell silent, and the land was sold ….. for $35,000. To the G. Gordon Liddy look-alike – the only person at the auction who looked out-of-place for my bucolic ‘hood.

No matter. After shaking hands with the folks there I knew (as well as to the country folks I did not), I went over and shook G. Gordon’s hand, told him who I was and said I would be happy to answer his questions. The first thing that was obvious was that he had never even bothered to look at my land beforehand. He asked how much road frontage came with the land (my answer: “None”). He asked how big the pond was on the land. (My answer” “What pond?”) He asked about the driveway. (My answer: there is an unimproved easement, back to the start of the land, but that will require building a 300 yard+ driveway that doesn’t now exist.) With each of my answers, G. Gordon’s mustache drooped a bit more.

I saved the best news for him to experience in the flesh. I neglected to tell G. Gordon that his new land in the country was bordered by the no-longer-young man from whom I bought the land a decade ago (to keep my then-young neighbor from losing the land to an alcohol and cocaine-fueled bankruptcy) and that neighbor had just moved two dilapidated trailers into his side field to join the dozen rusting cars and trucks up on bricko–blocks already scattered all along my (former) land’s western view. Everyone else who bid on my land on Wednesday knew about that scenery. G. Gordon did not.

I can’t wait to see his face.

So that was it, folks. Seven years of heart-ache ended in three minutes of cold-cash bids. I was glad (I suppose) that it was over. And I was very glad that my land brought so little to the feds. In fact, I drove home hoping that the last prosecutor I dealt with (dense between the ears, deficient in the heart) would choke on the news of the pitiful return the land brought. Choke on it … and die.

I have learned and (and re-learned, one day at a time) that keeping an attitude of gratitude is the best way to face everything and recover. So it was on Wednesday. But two things kept eating me, and I suspect they always will. Unbeknownst to me and to my neighbors who bid on the land, they were instructed before the sale that the US Marshalls had imposed another restriction on the sale of my land that would prohibit anyone that day (including, especially, me) from bidding on the land with the intention of selling it or otherwise returning it to me. They repeated that extra-judicial restriction (which none of us, including my judge, knew about or acquiesced to) several times before the sale. Mind you, no one was there to buy the land for me, and I hardly have a pot to piss in these days, much less more money to throw down a fetid federal rat-hole. But just the thought of that final example of arrogant federal flatulence posing for law-and-order reminded me of it all.

And some of that “all” was what the 25 acres meant to me. Even though it was not part of my original farm, it was land that I learned to cut and haul hay on (when I helped my young neighbor’s daddy, Sharkey Shouse, put up hay for his jacks and jennies). It was land that I had fenced, not once but twice. It was land I had kept clean, before it was my land and after. It was land from which I had cut firewood, and witnessed the wonder of an ice-storm’s aftermath, coating the tall grass and every hanging tree twig and branch with ice that sparkled like a billion little prismic rainbows. That was what that 25 acres meant to me.

What it was to the feds was one more chance to drown the American dream in the drug war’s civil asset forfeiture bath-tub, one more chance to demonstrate that growing pot is the crime that keeps on punishing – more than murder, more than rape, more than election fraud or fouling our seas. More than almost anything.

That is where I want to leave all y’all this morning. But – to be clear – I am not leaving you at the end of this story. I am leaving you in the middle of this struggle. No one else (or precious few) should have to go through what my last eight years have been. Our failed war on drugs – and the steroided, well-armed, civil liberties-trampling “drug worriers” that it has unleashed like so many rabid flying monkeys on us – has got to stop. And it has to stop soon.

I helped elect President Obama (almost all of us did) for many reasons, including his pledge to allow cannabis/marijuana to be returned to the medical pharmacopoeia. I celebrated when AG Holder announced last October that the feds would no longer go after participants in lawfully-established state medical marijuana programs. I have been encouraged by the number of states (14 now and DC) who have re-established medical marijuana programs and the several dozen (including Tennessee) who are not far behind. Indeed, there is much to be grateful for.

At the same time, I had to drive 120 miles round-trip on Wednesday for the privilege of witnessing the sale of land that was (and will always be) a piece of my heart. And, three times in the three weeks before that sale, I have experienced my farm being buzzed, low and loud, by the farces of evil – low enough to rattle my windows and blow down my late summer sweet corn – ostensibly looking for pot that only a fool or an insane person (or someone broke and in pain) would plant. Though I have been some of the above, I have not (yet) been all three.

My only recourse for these illegal low-level fly-overs has been to drop my shorts and invite the pilot to fly up my ass. After that temporary relief, my other response has been — and always will be — to keep working to overturn the laws that keep these worthless and irrelevant cowardly cowboys in the air. That will be my life’s work. I hope it is yours too.

From the banks of my creek, just south of my Garden, on what’s left of my farm.

Peace out. Y’all come.
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” ..Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand ….” William Butler Yeats

In America since 1965, there have been 21 million arrests for marijuana, 9 out of 10 for quantities of an ounce or less. Over 800,000 were arrested for pot last year, with people of color and the young being arrested and incarcerated in hugely disproportionate numbers. Under current Washington State law, if arrested for possession of even the tiniest amount of cannabis, a person faces a mandatory night in jail, handcuffs, mugshots, fingerprints, and a criminal record that, thanks to the internet and data-mining, might follow a person for the rest of their life.

The Mexican Cartels have murdered tens of thousands of people in their own country and now their violence is spilling over the boarder into America. Sales of marijuana in the US are estimated to account for half of the Cartels’ revenue stream. By simply legalizing pot, by taking the business and the profits of marijuana out of the hands of these criminals, taxing and regulating cannabis would be a devastating blow to organized crime. And at the same time, regulation would ensure our citizens that standards of purity and potency had been met.

California, Oregon and Washington have all had marijuana legalization initiatives filed this year. California’s initiative already has enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, and recent polling of likely voters found that 56% plan to vote, “Yes”, on the measure come November. California’s Board of Tax Equalization has estimated that the legalization of cannabis will bring $1.4 billion in new tax revenues to the state’s cash-strapped municipalities.

This month, a Pew Charitable Trust poll found that 73% of all Americans are in favor of legal access to marijuana as medicine. Used as medicine for over 4,500 years, the DEA’s own Chief Administrative Law Judge, Francis L. Young ruled: “Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man…” Without even holding a hearing, and over the objections of the American Medical Association, all uses of cannabis were outlawed by Congress in 1937. Since California’s passage of Prop 215 in 1996, 14 states have now taken back their medical marijuana rights from the Feds. Much safer than aspirin (gastric bleeding, death) or Tylenol (liver damage, death), marijuana is safer than virtually every other over-the-counter and prescription medicine for sale in America. Cannabis is also far safer, as a recreational drug, than either the very speedily deadly alcohol or the slowly lethal tobacco. Marijuana is not only safer for the individual, but it is safer for the society, too. A Seattle Police Sgt. patrolling Seattle Hempfest’s cannabis-imbibing 100,000 person crowd told me, “…compared to the crowds coming out of Safeco or Quest field after a game, patrolling Hempfest is like patrolling a Girl Scout picnic.”

Through my own recreational use, I discovered marijuana the all-natural non-toxic pain medicine with far less severe side-effects than the prescription alternatives. I believe cannabis should be legal for medical, recreational, food and fiber uses. Cannabis should be legal for American farmers to grow. If cannabis is legal for all, sick people will be able to get it. Ending this prohibition, America must also wean law enforcement from its 70-year-old marijuana arrest addiction. Cannabis use didn’t turn either Michael Phelps or Barack Obama into a couch potato or a loser. It’s time to legalize it. Tax and regulate marijuana…Now.

George Rohrbacher is a retired cattle rancher, former WA state senator (R), former Commissioner of Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, currently serving on the NORML Board of Directors (For additional information please review the titles of two of the blogs I’ve written for the NORML blog: “Confessions of a Medical Marijuana Patient” and “Marijuana Prohibition and Fatherhood”)

This essay was originally published in the Peninsula Daily News on May 4th.