(Reuters) – Federal agents executed search warrants at several Detroit area locations on Tuesday including a medical marijuana facility owned by a businessman who also owns a long-closed auto plant that has become a symbol of Detroit’s decline.

The Drug Enforcement Administration, state and local law enforcement agencies conducted the searches at offices in northwest suburban Detroit, Andrew Eiseman, group supervisor for the DEA in Detroit, said.

California, check.  Nevada, check.  Montana, check.  Michigan, check.  Because, apparently, our federal law enforcement officials don’t have “violent crimes and potential terrorism… to deal with” anymore.

Barack Obama, 2008: “When it comes to medical marijuana, I have more of a practical view than anything else,” the Senator explained. “My attitude is that if it’s an issue of doctors prescribing medical marijuana as a treatment for glaucoma or as a cancer treatment, I think that should be appropriate because there really is no difference between that and a doctor prescribing morphine or anything else. …

“What I’m not going to be doing is using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue simply because I want folks to be investigating violent crimes and potential terrorism. We’ve got a lot of things for our law enforcement officers to deal with.”

The Pacific Northwest has been spared most federal interference in their medical marijuana programs as Washington and Oregon had not engaged in very much open medical marijuana distribution for compensation.  But now with “farmer’s markets” and “cannabis clubs” and “storefront caregivers” proliferating in these states and Mr. Obama’s acquiescence (approval?) of Ms. Leonhart’s raids in now four medical marijuana states, can DEA raids in the Pacific Northwest be far behind?

examiner Federal agents beefed up by local law enforcement personnel raided two West Hollywood medical marijuana dispensaries on Tuesday, arresting one person.

The agents, along with Los Angeles Police Department officers and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies, raided Alternative Herbal Health Services and Zen Healing on Santa Monica Boulevard around 2:10 p.m., the Los Angeles Times reported. The two dispensaries are among four West Hollywood has allowed to operate.  Sarah Pullen of the Drug Enforcement Administration declined to tell the Times what led to the raids, what was seized or who was in custody.

The last DEA raid in West Hollywood was in 2007, The Times reported.

In 2009, The U.S. Justice Department said it would not investigate dispensaries that observe California law, even though federal law continues to bar marijuana use.

Yup, that Holder memo has a huge loophole.  It said they wouldn’t prosecute those dispensaries operating in “clear and unambiguous compliance” with state law.  Well, nothing about California’s medical marijuana is “clear and unambiguous” when it comes to storefront sales.

But it certainly goes against the interpretation many had about that memo in the context of President Obama’s responses to the question of medical marijuana raids while running for office.  He said “I’m not going to be doing is using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue simply because I want folks to be investigating violent crimes and potential terrorism. We’ve got a lot of things for our law enforcement officers to deal with.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Apparently all the violent crimes and potential terrorism have been taken care of.

Here’s the official report from the latest raids in Montana.  If you needed any more evidence that our marijuana prohibition is nothing more than an elaborate job creation program for cops, prisons, and rehabs, just check out this list of law enforcement organizations that participated in shutting down the storefronts of caregivers in Montana:

(KXLF Butte) Agencies involved in the investigation include the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, the Internal Revenue Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Environmental Protection Agency-Criminal Investigation Division, U.S. Customs and Border Protection-Border Patrol, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. These federal agencies were assisted by the Montana Division of Criminal Investigations, and local High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task forces, the Northwest Drug Task Force, the Kalispell Police Department, the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office, the Missoula Police Department, the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office, the Missoula High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Task Force, the Great Falls Police Department, the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office, the Central Montana Drug Task Force, the Billings Police Department, the Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Office, the Eastern Montana High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Task Force, the Dillon Police Department, the Beaverhead County Sheriff’s Office, the Park County Sheriff’s Office, the Bozeman Police Department, the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office, the Missouri River Drug Task Force, the Helena Police Department, the Lewis & Clark Sheriff’s Office, and the Eastern Montana Drug Task Force – Miles City.

Here is the reason why all these cops were hard at work for eighteen months.  However, there was a problem in transcribing the news release – some of the release was mysteriously redacted.  So I took the liberty of putting the missing words back into the copy, which you can identify by the emphasis:

The businesses that provide medicine to sick people that were targeted were believed to be in violation of the Controlled Substances Act, the release states.

“Specifically, it is alleged in the search warrants, civil seizure warrants and related documents that the premises or property identified were involved in some or all of the following violations of federal law: manufacture of marijuana medicine for sick people in accordance with state law and possession with intent to distribute marijuana medicine to sick people, and distribution of marijuana medicine to sick people in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841, conspiracy to commit the offenses of manufacture of marijuana medicine for sick people, possession with intent to distribute marijuana medicine to sick people and distribution of marijuana medicine to sick people in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846, structuring or assisting in structuring any transaction to evade currency reporting requirements or causing or attempting to cause a domestic financial institution to fail to file Currency Transaction Reports in violation of 31 U.S.C. §§ 5324(a)(1) and (3),” the release states.

The reason those emphasized words have been redacted is to get the caregivers on trial used to the fact they can’t say those words in federal court.  There is no medical marijuana.  There is no medicine.  There are no patients and caregivers.  All those cancer patients and compassionate farmers are just felons to the feds.

So I can see why DEA, ICE, IRS, ATFE, FBI, EPA, and OSHA* are involved.  Why do we have all those county cops involved in enforcing federal law?  Those search warrants are all alleging violations of federal law, not state law.  State and local cops aren’t obliged to enforce federal laws.  They have to make the choice to assist.

Montanans, how do you feel about your tax dollars being wasted to prosecute caregivers and patients

*Interesting anagram: DEATH AIRBASE? A COFFEE I SIP.

Just as the Montana Judiciary committee deadlocked 6-6 on passing HB 161, the bill to fully repeal the Montana Medical Marijuana Act, we get word this morning of federal and local law enforcement raiding caregivers in multiple locations in the Big Sky State.

First, the good news:

(The Missoulian) HELENA – A Senate committee failed on a tie vote to endorse a bill that would repeal Montana’s medical marijuana law.

The Senate Judiciary Committee locked up 6-6 on a motion to pass House Bill 161, by House Speaker Mike Milburn, R-Cascade, to repeal the law passed by voters in 2004. The repeal bill passed the House earlier this session.

Five Republicans senators, joined by Democratic Sen. Larry Jent of Bozeman, voted in favor of HB161.

Four Democratic senators, jointed by Republican Sens. Chas Vincent of Libby and Terry Murphy of Cardwell, opposed the bill.

Montana Caregivers, with two raid cops taking a break (courtesy Montana NORML)

Now the bad news:

(The Missoulian) Federal raids hit medical marijuana shops around Montana Monday morning, causing an uproar in a community already roiled by high-profile attempts to regulate it.

“The timing is impeccable,” said Chris Lindsey, a Missoula attorney who specializes in medical marijuana cases, about the fact that the raids unfolded as a state Senate committee deadlocked on a bill to repeal the 2004 voter initiative that legalized marijuana.

“They’re seizing everything – plants, marijuana, grow equipment, files and computers. It’s very, very broad in its scope,” Lindsey said, who retains a lingering business interest in Montana Cannabis, one of the businesses where federal search warrants were executed.

The huge Montana Cannabis greenhouse in Helena was included in the raids, with authorities from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, Lewis and Clark County and Helena police taking part, according to the Associated Press. At least eight people were led away from the greenhouse in handcuffs, according to the AP report.

Our Montana Affiliate, Montana NORML, has been liveblogging the latest news.  They report the “smash and grab” tactics Californians are already familiar with, destroying ballasts, lights, seizing cash, computers, and lots of cannabis, but not charging anyone with crimes or arresting people.  Caregivers raided include Good Medicine Providers (Columbia Falls), 4 Seasons, CEG, Outlaw Hill (Livingston), Big Sky Patient Care (Bozeman), MCM (Bozeman), A Kinder Caregiver (Bozeman, Butte, Billings), Montana Cannabis (Helena), MT Cannabis (Missoula), Northern Light Medical (Kalispell), and Yellowstone Patient Care (Billings).

Montana NORML reports the raids are being overseen by the US Attorney’s office, specifically Victoria L. Francis, the Financial Litigation Unit Chief.  Because, you know, there isn’t any larger financial criminals to go after these days…

Time for some cutbacks at the Drug Employment Agency

With Republicans in the House claiming they want to cut down on spending for the next fiscal year, marijuana advocates are suggesting they should start with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s budget.

(TPM) Trimming the federal largesse that keeps the DEA fat and happy makes sense. Billions of dollars are thrown away annually on a quixotic and foolish War On Marijuana that is not supported by the public, that never achieves its goals, and that sees as its victims not only families but civil liberties and respect for law enforcement, as well.

The DEA was told last month — along with the FBI, ATF and the U.S. Marshals Service — to freeze hiring and curb spending in a memo from Attorney General Eric Holder, reports Jason Ryan at ABC News.  The DEA’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2011 noted that marijuana seizures had nearly doubled in fiscal year 2009.

Meanwhile, conservative Republicans in the House said they planned deep budget cuts, which, according to Democrats, would require the Department of Justice to fire 4,000 FBI agents and 1,500 DEA agents if applied equally across the board.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) could also cut the budget of the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), reports Devlin Barrett at the Wall Street Journal. Conservatives have long said the center is a waste of taxpayer money which hasn’t provided the high-quality analysis of drug networks that it had promised.

Acting DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart... you've been Kohl-blocked!

As NORML has warned, President Obama has nominated Michele Leonhart to head the Drug Enforcement Administration. Leonhart has been serving as Acting DEA Administrator since her appointment by the Bush Administration. Now during confirmation hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) has placed a hold on the nomination.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Sen. Kohl was upset about DEA restrictions on how nursing homes are allowed to dispense pain medications to elderly patients. New regulations intended to stem the diversion of addictive painkillers to the underground market would require nursing homes to have doctors, not nurses or other staff, to dispense medications like Oxycontin and Vicodin. The economic realities of the nursing home market do not allow these facilities to always have the necessary doctors on staff, leading to long wait times, under-treatment of pain, and suffering for elderly patients in pain.

Sen. Kohl placed the hold, an privilege of senators that prevents Leonhart’s nomination from proceeding to the full Senate, “until we have made more progress towards our goal of ensuring that nursing home residents get timely access to the prescription drug care they need,” said Kohl. “Every day nursing home patients continue to suffer from agonizing pain and we need an interim solution as soon as possible.”

NORML applauds any reason to prevent Leonhart from assuming the role of DEA Administrator.  However, we hope Sen. Kohl and the remainder of the Judiciary Committee also consider the nominee’s positions on medical marijuana and the Mexican Drug War as further indications she is unfit for the position.

If Sen. Kohl is concerned about nursing home patients continuing to suffer in agonizing pain, then Leonhart’s opposition to the fifteen states that provide medical marijuana to elderly patients should also be of concern.  As Acting Administrator, Leonhart has green-lighted at least thirty raids of medical marijuana dispensaries.  These raids run contrary to the directive of her boss, Attorney General Holder, who specified that scarce federal law enforcement resources should not be expended on medical marijuana operations running lawfully under state laws.  The medical marijuana from these dispensaries has been shown to relieve neuropathic pain as well as stave off the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and lessen the effects of arthritis – all beneficial for the elderly nursing home community.

All members of the committee should be wary of Leonhart’s views of the rapidly destabilizing Mexican state due to the drug war.  Just today the WikiLeaks dump of foreign diplomatic cables reveals a Mexican drug war plan that “lacks a clear strategy” and “suffers from infighting among security agencies” according to the Washington Post.  The leaks have insiders calling the $1.4 billion “Merida Initiative” of aid to Mexico “ill-conceived and doing little so far to fight drug traffickers.”

Yet Acting Administrator Leonhart, when questioned about the now 31,000 Mexicans now dead in the drug-trafficking wars since 2006, said “Our view is that the violence we have been seeing is a signpost of the success our very courageous Mexican counterparts are having. The cartels are acting out like caged animals, because they are caged animals.”  Where WikiLeaks reveals American and Mexican officials secretly doubting the effectiveness of our $1.4 billion strategy, Leonhart is selling it lock, stock, and barrel to the taxpayers.

Of further concern in the Leonhart nomination to head the DEA is her opposition to the science on cannabis.  She has refused to act on an eight-year-old petition supported by NORML to reschedule cannabis out of Schedule I where it is deemed to have “no medicinal value”; this is inexcusable stonewalling in the face of fifteen US states that recognize cannabis’ medicinal value, the calls from the American Medical Association for its rescheduling, and the federal government’s own patent on the medicinal properties of cannabinoids.  Leonhart has even refused to heed the declaration of a DEA judge in the petition of Professor Lyle Craker, whom the judge said should be allowed to grow cannabis for scientific research.

You can still write or call your Senator about Ms. Leonhart’s nomination process – to do so click here and here.  Tell your Senator to support Sen. Kohl’s opposition to Michele Leonhart for DEA Administrator and demand President Obama nominate an administrator who will be open-minded on the science of medical marijuana and willing to reasonably discuss the end of the drug war altogether.

This just in from our correspondent George Orwell:

(CNN) — Law enforcement officers may secretly place a GPS device on a person’s car without seeking a warrant from a judge, according to a recent federal appeals court ruling in California.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Oregon in 2007 surreptitiously attached a GPS to the silver Jeep owned by Juan Pineda-Moreno, whom they suspected of growing marijuana, according to court papers.

But he appealed on the grounds that sneaking onto a person’s driveway and secretly tracking their car violates a person’s reasonable expectation of privacy.

“They went onto the property several times in the middle of the night without his knowledge and without his permission,” said his lawyer, Harrison Latto.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the appeal twice — in January of this year by a three-judge panel, and then again by the full court earlier this month. The judges who affirmed Pineda-Moreno’s conviction did so without comment.

Latto says the Ninth Circuit decision means law enforcement can place trackers on cars, without seeking a court’s permission, in the nine western states the California-based circuit covers.

This case will surely reach the Supreme Court.  A Washington DC appeals court came to a different conclusion, saying that cops need a warrant to place electronic surveillance on your car.  A former Justice Department attorney compared it to the “old fashioned surveillance” of having a cop in an unmarked car tailing your every move.

He even went on to say that just because your car is in your driveway, on your private property, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy that prevents then from affixing electronic tracking devices on your car.  He says you have to build a fence or put your car in the garage to keep cops from tampering with it and gleaning your every move in public with no court approval or supervision.

When these civil liberties cases come up, I always use what I call the Founding Fathers Time Machine Test.  Imagine sitting down with Founding Fathers and explaining this case:

RUSS:  OK, gentlemen, enough questions about my time pod.  I only have a little time to tell you about something terrible happening two centuries in the future.  Something perhaps you can prevent by adding a few words to this “Bill of Rights” you’re working on.  See, the court decided that the state has the right to put a GPS on your car…

JEFFERSON:  A jeepiess?  What is a jeepiess?

MADISON:  What is a car?

RUSS:  OK, in the future… well… first off, a car is like your horse-drawn carriages, except it needs no horse for propulsion.  Almost everyone has one and it is the primary way of moving people and goods from place to place.  In our future, you really can’t do business or be employed without one in most places.

JEFFERSON:  Remarkable.  And the jeepiess?

RUSS:  It’s initials – G, P, S.  It is a technology we have in the future that allows you to accurately track the location of anything on the planet within a few yards.

WASHINGTON:  This is madness.  Such a thing isn’t possible.

RUSS:  Well, Mr. President, it is.  We’ve put men on the moon, harnessed the power of the sun, and can instantly view places all over the globe.

JEFFERSON:  So this GPS, what does it do, exactly?

RUSS:  It’s hard to explain, but imagine that everywhere you went, there was a government clerk going with you, cataloging every location you visit and every route you took to get there and every time of the day you went.  Then imagine the government clerk never sleeps and is invisible and you can’t possibly detect him in any way.  And that the government can assign that clerk to you without your knowledge and without a court determining that there’s a reasonable chance you’re breaking the law.

MADISON:  Tyranny!

JEFFERSON:  My friend Mr. Madison is correct; this is scarcely the philosophy of a free and just society!  If this stranger’s prophecy rings true, our noble experiment in liberty is extinguished in a mere two centuries.

WASHINGTON:  Surely our descendants must be an educated people.  I cannot fathom our great country, founded with the blood of patriots against the tyrant of London, turning to tyrants themselves without compelling reason.  For what purpose do the agents of the state seek to violate the sacred privacy of the People?

RUSS:  To prevent them from growing hemp.

WASHINGTON:  Prevent?!?

RUSS:  Yes.  Some Americans like to smoke the dried flowers of hemp, so our government arrests and imprisons them for cultivating it.  We even force workers to surrender cups of their urine for testing to prove they aren’t smoking dried hemp flowers.

JEFFERSON:  “Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country!”

RUSS:  Some of us are aware of that, too, Mr. President… whoops, I mean, “Mr. Ambassador”… yet 850,000 are arrested over hemp every year…

MADISON:  Charlatan!  I had set aside my skepticism to hear your tale based on your strange dress and the odd contraption in which you arrived, but to prophecy that America would ever abandon her principles of equality and fairness to seek and punish citizens for growing hemp is an absurdity worthy of Jonathan Swift!  Now leave us alone so we can protect the rights of citizens that might actually be proscribed by the state.

WASHINGTON:  America punishing hemp farmers… I guess they’d have to punish us, eh, Thomas?

JEFFERSON:  What a fantastic tale.  Begone, odd visitor.

Your car on private property isn’t private.  War is peace.  Freedom is slavery.  Orwell was right.

Acting DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart

President Barack Obama recently nominated Michelle Leonhart to direct the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. NORML is asking you to contact your Senator today and urge him or her to reject this nomination.

As interim DEA director, Ms. Leonhart orchestrated federal raids on individuals and facilities who were compliant with the medical marijuana laws of their states — a policy that is in direct conflict with the wishes of the present administration. Further, Ms. Leonhart has inexplicably called the rising death toll of civilians attributable to the U.S./Mexican drug war “a signpost of the success” of current drug prohibition strategies. Finally, she has repeatedly acted to block clinical research into the medical properties of marijuana — actions that would appear to run contrary to this administration’s pledge to allow science, rather than rhetoric and ideology, guide public policy.

Ms. Leonhart’s actions and ambitions are incompatible with common sense marijuana law reform. Please urge Congress to reject this nomination. For your convenience, a prewritten letter will be e-mailed to your member of the U.S. Senate when you enter your contact information below.

Thank you for assisting NORML’s federal law reform efforts.

Originally posted here:
Reject Obama’s Nomination of Michelle Leonhart For DEA Director

Our Executive Director has posted the latest salvo of propaganda from the Drug Enforcement Administration on the NORML Blog and provided a very thorough rebuttal to the notion that Alaskans “legalized” marijuana in the 1970s, freaked out over the carnage and, my god, the children!!, and in the 1990s made it illegal again.  This “failed experiment” with “drug legalization” is supposed to be a dire warning to those on the West Coast who are trying to regulate the third-most popular recreational substance somewhat like the first, but Allen St. Pierre tells you the history of Alaskan constitutional privacy rights the DEA would like you to forget.

Left there hanging on the vine, though, are the other nine “facts” the DEA are presenting, a la David Letterman (but not as funny), in something we’re calling the…

“These here, Paul, from our own government, from somewhere deep in Dick Cheney’s secret bunker, the Top Ten Facts About Legalization from the DEA…”

Fact 1: We have made significant progress in fighting drug use and drug trafficking in America. Now is not the time to abandon our efforts.

The Legalization Lobby claims that the fight against drugs cannot be won. However, overall drug use is down by more than a third in the last twenty years, while cocaine use has dropped by an astounding 70 percent. Ninety-five percent of Americans do not use drugs. This is success by any standards.

Actually, two out of three Americans use drugs if you include alcohol and one out of ten Americans use cannabis (National Survey on Drug Use & Health 2008) every year, so I’m not sure how you can say 95% of Americans do not use drugs.  If we were to include prescription and over-the-counter drug use, I’m sure something close to 95% of Americans actually use drugs.

But we weren’t talking about “legalizing drugs”, we’re talking about regulation of cannabis.  Whether cocaine or other drug use has risen or fallen is beside the point.  Fierce marijuana criminalization laws haven’t stopped the United States from leading the world in lifetime marijuana use and open tolerance of cannabis coffeehouses in The Netherlands haven’t moved the Dutch from having half the lifetime use rates and one-third the young teen (<=15) use rates of cannabis as Americans.  Portugal has decriminalized drugs to a large extent and the international community calls it “a resounding success”.  Singapore and Indonesia have some of the harshest anti-cannabis laws in the world, and yet they still have to keep executing the smugglers who won’t stop bringing it in to the country.  We can’t even keep drugs out of our SuperMax federal prisons; what makes the DEA think it can succeed in keeping drugs out of free adult hands?

Lifetime cannabis use = 31% in 1988 to 41% in 2008

Drug use rates have very little to do with drug laws.  And even the DEA’s claim that drug use is down a third in twenty years is suspect.  If we define “drug use” as the lifetime rates that have been tracked by the National Surveys on Drug Use and Health over the past twenty years (1988-2008), then cannabis use has risen dramatically in the past twenty years, from 31% to 41% of the population aged 12 and older who have tried cannabis.

Lifetime crack use = more than double; heroin use = almost double; hallucinogen use = almost double; coke, meth, and inhalants = all increased >20%

In fact, when you take a look at the lifetime use of illegal drugs (cocaine, crack, meth, heroin, hallucinogens, and inhalants), you find that all those figures have risen over the past twenty years, too.

Annual alcohol consumption = steady; annual cigarette consumption = 38% in 1988 to 28% in 2008

The most interesting figures appear when you look at lifetime, annual, and monthly use of the legal drugs, alcohol and cigarettes.  Alcohol use has remained steady but declining, while cigarette use has plummeted.

What this all tells us is:

• People that want to use substances will;
• Maintaining prohibition over marijuana and drugs hasn’t stopped anyone; in fact use has risen;
• Regulating dangerous and addictive drugs like alcohol and tobacco hasn’t encouraged greater use; in fact use has decreased.

Fact 2: A balanced approach of prevention, enforcement, and treatment is the key in the fight against drugs.

A successful drug policy must apply a balanced approach of prevention, enforcement and treatment. All three aspects are crucial. For those who end up hooked on drugs, there are innovative programs, like Drug Treatment Courts, that offer non-violent users the option of seeking treatment. Drug Treatment Courts provide court supervision, unlike voluntary treatment centers.

Almost twice as much of your tax money goes to trying to arrest you for drugs as trying to help you quit them

That’s a nice sentiment, but it is not how the government actually prosecutes the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs.  49.8% of all drug arrests are for marijuana violations, with 89% of those marijuana arrests made for possession alone.  The “balanced approach” in President Obama’s FY 2011 Budget makes the DEA the fat kid on the see-saw, with $9.9 billion appropriated for law enforcement and interdiction vs. $5.6 billion appropriated for treatment and prevention.

Fact 3: Illegal drugs are illegal because they are harmful.

There is a growing misconception that some illegal drugs can be taken safely. For example, savvy drug dealers have learned how to market drugs like Ecstasy to youth. Some in the Legalization Lobby even claim such drugs have medical value, despite the lack of conclusive scientific evidence.

Once again, I haven’t seen any movement on the West Coast to put legalization of MDMA on the ballot; we’re talking about regulating marijuana.

Remember, this is a graph on a logarithmic scale. Cannabis is actually 2,000 times safer than alcohol.

However there is a way of measuring how safe a particular substance is to ingest; it’s called a “therapeutic index“.  It’s the ratio of “ED-50″, that is, a  minimum dose that will have the desired effect in 50% of test subjects, to the “LD-50″, which is the size of a lethal dose that will kill 50% of test subjects.  For example, half the people who cop a buzz on a “dose” of alcohol – whatever amount that is – will die if they drink ten times that amount.  That’s a “therapeutic index” of 1:10.

When measured by therapeutic index, most “illegal” drugs are technically safer than alcohol and cannabis is the safest of all with a therapeutic index that’s practically immeasurable.  Cannabis is so non-toxic that it’s ratio is estimated to be 1:20,000 to 1:40,000.  The DEA’s Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young concluded it would take a man smoking 1,500 lbs. of cannabis in 15 minutes to die of an overdose.

Fact 4: Smoked marijuana is not scientifically approved medicine. Marinol, the legal version of medical marijuana, is approved by science.

According to the Institute of Medicine, there is no future in smoked marijuana as medicine. However, the prescription drug Marinol—a legal and safe version of medical marijuana which isolates the active ingredient of THC—has been studied and approved by the Food & Drug Administration as safe medicine. The difference is that you have to get a prescription for Marinol from a licensed physician. You can’t buy it on a street corner, and you don’t smoke it.

"The DEA's doing research like it's 1999..."

Nice of the DEA to reference the 1999 Institute of Medicine report.  That was the report that concluded, as every report on the subject has, that marijuana use “does not appear to be a gateway drug to the extent that it is the cause or even that it is the most significant predictor of serious drug abuse.”

That report also noted that only 9% of marijuana users develop “dependence”, compared to 15% for alcohol, 17% for cocaine, 23% for heroin, and 32% for tobacco.

It also noted that “A distinctive marijuana and THC withdrawal syndrome has been identified, but it is mild and subtle compared with the profound physical syndrome of alcohol or heroin withdrawal,” which can cause seizures, hallucinations, and severe cravings.  According to the report, “the symptoms of marijuana withdrawal include restlessness, irritability, mild agitation, insomnia, sleep EEG disturbance, nausea, and cramping.”

So if sometime later in the Top Ten list the DEA wants you to believe that legalization of marijuana will lead to increased addiction, remember that they were the ones using this report to argue against the medical efficacy of smoked marijuana.

However, it is interesting that the DEA makes no mention of the 2009 statement by the American Medical Association which concluded “Results of short term controlled trials indicate that smoked cannabis reduces neuropathic pain, improves appetite and caloric intake especially in patients with reduced muscle mass, and may relieve spasticity and pain in patients with multiple sclerosis…. To the extent that rescheduling marijuana out of Schedule I will benefit this effort [to develop cannabinoid medicines], such a move can be supported.

It’s also interesting how the DEA never mentions vaporization, tinctures, and edibles, which have been proven to eliminate the major harm of cannabis use – smoking.

And I never tire of the DEA that warns us about the super-potent Schedule I “Pot 2.0: Not Your Father’s Woodstock Weed” that approaches average THC potencies of 10% with maximums in the 30% range, then turns around and tells us how Schedule III 100% potent Marinol is so safe and effective.

Fact 5: Drug control spending is a minor portion of the U.S. budget. Compared to the social costs of drug abuse and addiction, government spending on drug control is minimal.

The Legalization Lobby claims that the United States has wasted billions of dollars in its anti-drug efforts. But for those kids saved from drug addiction, this is hardly wasted dollars. Moreover, our fight against drug abuse and addiction is an ongoing struggle that should be treated like any other social problem. Would we give up on education or poverty simply because we haven’t eliminated all problems? Compared to the social costs of drug abuse and addiction—whether in taxpayer dollars or in pain and suffering—government spending on drug control is minimal.

The "Legalization Lobby's" budget, in green, vs. the DEA's budget, in red. What's that, you don't see much green? Yeah, neither do we!

Finally, something sort or true from the DEA: “Drug control spending is a minor portion of the U.S. budget.”  At $15.5 billion compared to the overall fiscal year budget of $3.7 trillion, they’re right.  The entire drug war budget doesn’t even equal  the single “Military Construction” line ($16.9 B) in the Pentagon’s $548 billion budget.

But then they pivot that fact to the falsehood that saving money on law enforcement and making money in tax revenues by regulating marijuana markets would not match the gross expenses we’d suffer from our kids becoming slaves to drug addiction.  Never mind that they just ignored the previous point from the 1999 IOM Report about the gateway theory – what they are telling you is that legal marijuana users will cost society more than it saves and earns from taxation.

Canadian study of costs per substance user per year

To bolster this point, drug warriors like to point out that “sin” taxes on alcohol and tobacco only bring in a fraction of money compared to the measurable social costs of alcoholism and tobacco cancers.  It’s another example of starting from a fact and pivoting to a falsehood.  Alcohol and tobacco cost society a lot of money because (a) they’re addictive (see 1999 IOM Report above) and (b) they can kill you (see therapeutic index above).  A Canadian study on the annual health costs of one tobacco, alcohol, or cannabis user were $800, $165, and $20, respectively, while the enforcement costs on tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis per user were $0, $153, and $328, respectively.  In essence, Canada is spending $328 per toker to save $20 in health care costs!  Those numbers must be worse in America.

But set aside the numbers for a moment and just use some common sense.  If cannabis users cause such a great social harm that they are a cost burden to society, we are costing society right now.  It’s not as if nobody smokes pot now and suddenly legalization on the West Coast will create a country full of 22 million pot smokers imposing a new burden on society.  I’ve broken down this cost argument before, but basically whatever we cost now (some number far less than alcohol or tobacco, certainly), we’d cost less once you’ve made some tax revenue off of us.  The California Board of Equalization estimates $1.4 billion in revenues from legalization, so there would have to be $1.4 billion-worth of new pot smokers recruited and old tokers puffing more for this theory to make any sense at all.  If California doubled its current 2.3 million tokers after legalization, those 2.3 million new tokers would have to cost the state $608 each to eat up the tax revenues.

For comparison’s sake, according to the UC San Francisco Institute on Health and Aging, alcohol abuse costs California $17.8 billion and kills 13,000 Californians annually.  The NSDUH State Reports tell us that 62.5% of Californians 18 and older use alcohol, which works out to 17.1 million drinkers.  That division works out to a drinker costing California $1,041 each.

So in order to swallow this whopper, we need to believe that a legalized toker will cost California 60% as much as a legal drinker, when the studies show that in Canada a legalized toker would cost about 6% as much as a legal drinker.

Fact 6: Legalization of drugs will lead to increased use and increased levels of addiction. Legalization has been tried before, and failed miserably.

Legalization has been tried before—and failed miserably. Alaska’s experiment with Legalization in the 1970s led to the state’s teens using marijuana at more than twice the rate of other youths nationally. This led Alaska’s residents to vote to re-criminalize marijuana in 1990.

Again, see Allen St. Pierre’s deconstruction of the Alaska story, and remember that the same DEA that cited the 1999 IOM Report above that said marijuana use doesn’t lead to hard drug addiction is now telling you West Coast legalization of cannabis will lead to increased addiction.

When we look at the experience of thirteen states that have decriminalized marijuana and the fourteen states that have legalized medical use of marijuana, we find the DEA’s theory blown to bits.  In fact, that same 1999 IOM Report cited by the DEA above even concluded, “In sum, there is little evidence that decriminalization of marijuana use necessarily leads to a substantial increase in marijuana use.”

Fact 7: Crime, violence, and drug use go hand-in-hand.

Crime, violence and drug use go hand in hand. Six times as many homicides are committed by people under the influence of drugs, as by those who are looking for money to buy drugs. Most drug crimes aren’t committed by people trying to pay for drugs; they’re committed by people on drugs.

60% of the revenue for Mexican murderers comes from marijuana prohibition

Drugs, drugs, drugs… what does this have to do with cannabis?  The notion of a cannabis user deprived of weed and jonesing so bad he commits a crime to get the money for weed is ridiculous and the idea that cannabis users are driven to crime by the effects of cannabis is ludicrous.  Every study (like this one) that looks at violence and marijuana finds that cannabis use tends to inhibit violence by its users.

The only violence commonly attributed to marijuana is directly caused by its prohibition.  Mexican drug syndicates are not murdering 18,000 people over a three year span to protect their breweries, vineyards, beer and wine trucks, and hops and tobacco crops.  The only crime commonly attributed to marijuana use is the plundering of munchies from the fridge.

Fact 8: Alcohol has caused significant health, social, and crime problems in this country, and legalized drugs would only make the situation worse.

The Legalization Lobby claims drugs are no more dangerous than alcohol. But drunk driving is one of the primary killers of Americans. Do we want our bus drivers, nurses, and airline pilots to be able to take drugs one evening, and operate freely at work the next day? Do we want to add to the destruction by making drugged driving another primary killer?

No, I actually claim that cannabis is far safer than alcohol, see the therapeutic index data above.  This is another talking point that pivots from a fact (drunk driving is a serious problem) to a falsehood (the implied threat that legalization of cannabis would lead to more highway fatalities).

Nobody's suggesting you hot-box your ride and see how well you do on the test... but you will out-perform a drinker.

First of all, the US Dept. of Transportation fact sheet on cannabis states, “Effects from smoking cannabis products are felt within minutes and reach their peak in 10-30 minutes. Typical marijuana smokers experience a high that lasts approximately 2 hours.”  So if the bus driver, nurse, and airline pilot want to smoke a joint before bed and drive, nurse, or fly me the next day, I’m not at all worried; no more so than if they decide to have a glass of wine the night before work.

Then we have to remember that if cannabis smokers are driving, they are driving now.  If pot smoking were such a threat on our roadways we’d have seen the bodies pile up by now.  Numerous studies have confirmed what we all know:

• Drivers under the influence of cannabis tend to follow less closely to the vehicle in front of them;
• Drivers tend to decrease speed following cannabis inhalation;
• Drivers with blood alcohol levels of 0.05% were three times as likely to have engaged in unsafe driving activities prior to a fatal crash as compared to individuals who tested positive for marijuana;
• Drivers with low levels of alcohol present in their blood (below 0.05%) experienced a greater elevated risk as compared to drivers who tested positive for high concentrations of cannabis (above 5ng/ml).

In other words, even the highest cannabis-using driver is less dangerous than an alcohol-buzzed driver who is still below the per se impairment limits (0.08%) for alcohol.

Fact 9: Europe’s more liberal drug policies are not the right model for America.

The Legalization Lobby claims that the “European Model” of the drug problem is successful. However, since legalization of marijuana in Holland, heroin addiction levels have tripled. And Needle Park seems like a poor model for America.

Compared to Americans, Dutch teenagers use marijuana at half the rates, even though it is sold openly in coffeehouses

The Dutch began their policy of cannabis tolerance in 1976.  According to the 2008 EMCDDA National Report for The Netherlands, lifetime prevalence of heroin use was 0.3% in 1997 and 0.2% in 2001.  I looked all over the DEA’s website and press releases for 2001 looking for them to claim that Dutch cannabis tolerance has led to a one-third decrease in heroin use, but I never found it.  Prevalence of heroin use in 2005 was reported to be 0.6%, which would be triple the 2001 figure, but only double the 1997 figure.

But once again, the DEA cited the 1999 IOM Report above that tells us smoking pot doesn’t lead to heroin addiction, so I’m not sure what the DEA’s point is.  It also doesn’t help their case that their heroin use rates are less than half of American heroin use rates (1.52% lifetime prevalence).

Fact 10: Most non-violent drug users get treatment, not jail time.

The Legalization Lobby claims that America’s prisons are filling up with users. Truth is, only about 5 percent of inmates in federal prison are there because of simple possession. Most drug criminals are in jail—even on possession charges—because they have plea-bargained down from major trafficking offences or more violent drug crimes.

"The fact is that finding a first-time. non-violent offender in prison for marijuana is like finding a unicorn." -- John Walters, former drug czar, on the 11,200 Marijuana Unicorns in a cage right now.

Oh, only 1 out of 20 of the 2.3 million people we imprison are there for simple possession?  My math tells me that’s 115,000 Americans in a cage for their personal use of drugs.  The Sentencing Project determined that 11,200 of those Americans are in a cage for simple marijuana possession alone.  Of course, this is just federal prison we’re talking about, when most marijuana users are processed through city and county jails and housed in state prisons.

Another bit of falsehood pivoted to from these imprisonment facts is that pronouncement that most “drug criminals” are plea-bargaining down from more serious charges.  Often those are “intent to distribute” charges filed when a cannabis user makes the mistake of keeping separate strains in separate bags (multiple bags in the eyes of the law means you must be selling), “conspiracy” charges filed against cannabis users who “go in” with other cannabis users to split the cost of expensive cannabis, and “manufacture” charges filed when a cannabis user grows his own instead of participating in the black market.

But whether people are serving a day, 29 years, or 93 years for marijuana charges is irrelevant; it is the the arrest for marijuana possession itself that causes the harms to the user irrespective of any stay in a jail cell:

• If you’re convicted or enter a plea, you’ll be on probation and mandatory Urinalysis Tests will be performed.
• A conviction could impact child custody issues in family court.
• An arrest for Possession with Intent to Distribute or an arrest for the Manufacture of plants may result in the State attempting to Forfeit your home, your car, your cash and other assets which they can do even if charges are later dismissed or you are acquitted at trial! This heinous law is know as “Asset Forfeiture”.
• A conviction can impact Federally insured student loans
• A felony conviction deprives you of the right to vote
• A felony conviction deprives you of the right to possess firearms
• A conviction can get you tossed out of government subsidized housing
• A conviction can impair your ability to obtain food stamps and other welfare benefits
• Your ability to ever adopt children will be jeopardized
• You will be denied entry into Canada and possibly other countries
• A misdemeanor conviction remains on your record and available to the public for three years before it can be expunged, which may have an impact on current or future employment
• A felony conviction remains on your record and available to the public for five years before it can be expunged, which may have an impact on current or future employment.

The DEA is terrified because there is a legitimate shot for the voters to legalize marijuana use, manufacture, and sales in one, possibly two, and maybe even three West Coast states this year.  If this bit of reefer madness is the best counter they have to offer, I really like our chances!

Would arresting this guy for smoking pot make you laugh, Mr. President?

Here is another pin in the bedraggled balloon of hope that Barack Obama would de-escalate the war on drugs:

The total amount of marijuana seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration nearly doubled from 1,539 metric tons in fiscal 2008 to 2,980 metric tons last year.

The numbers were disclosed as part of the DEA’s budget request for fiscal 2011.

To recap: The guy who called the war on drugs “an utter failure” and supported marijuana decriminalization when he was running for the Senate, and who promised to call off the DEA’s medical marijuana raids when he was running for president, has sought an increase in funding for that utter failure, ridiculed the very notion of marijuana decriminalization, presided over a doubling in marijuana seizures, nominated a hard-line Bush administration holdover to head the DEA, and continued to let the DEA raid medical marijuana dispensaries and grow operations without regard to whether they are following state law, despite a written Justice Department policy to the contrary.

I have an Obama 2008 cap, in the reverse-Kangol style that I wear.  I walked all around Denver for the 2008 Democratic Convention (I was an accredited blogger with limited credentials) until I found it.  I was so proud to get it and got so many great compliments on it when I returned to Portland.  I even wore it as I delivered an impassioned fundraising speech for the Obama campaign a week before the election.

Now I think I will burn it in effigy onstage at Seattle Hempfest.

I am increasingly beginning to regret my vote for Mr. Obama.  While I still think, for many reasons, my choice was the better of the two choices, I’m beginning to feel like either choice would have had similar impact on our issue.

Many will bring up Rep. Ron Paul or third parties like Libertarians or Greens.  While those entities may present a better choice on the marijuana issue, there are some major deal-breakers for me in some of their other planks.  The real problem for me is the game theory in our winner-take-all voting system virtually guarantees our politics will always be dominated by two parties.

Check out the site http://rangevoting.org for the math that proves it.  Game theory and study of natural decision making in the animal kingdom provide us a proven system – range voting – that ensures the choice most satisfying to the largest number is always made.  Could it ever happen?  Probably not, but it’s interesting to think about.