This Joe Rogan interview Made My Day! David Sirota: This Is the Truth on Drugs ... Any Questions? This Is the Truth on Drugs ...
Any Questions? Posted on Apr 2, 2009 By David Sirota Finally, a little honesty. Finally, after America has frittered away billions of taxpayer dollars arming Latin American death squads, airdropping toxic herbicide on equatorial farmland and incarcerating more of its own citizens on nonviolent drug charges than any other industrialized nation, two political leaders last week tried to begin taming the most wildly out-of-control beast in the government zoo: federal narcotics policy. It started with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stating an embarrassingly obvious truth that politicians almost never discuss. She’s right, of course. According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Americans spend about $9 billion a year on Mexican pot. Add that to the roughly $36 billion worth of domestically produced weed, and cannabis has become one of the continent’s biggest cash crops.
That last stat, provided by the White House drug czar, is the silver lining. Scott Morgan: Fixing Our Drug Policy Will Require a Hatchet, Not a Scalpel. Two different staffers at the Drug Czar's office have both used the same word recently to describe Obama's approach to drug policy.
That word, if you can believe it, is reform. It's a term I use an awful lot myself, and I must admit I'm more than a little intrigued to find Obama's top anti-drug officials co-opting the catchphrases of their critics. Here's Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for the Drug Czar, making the case here in the Huffington Post that Obama's approach to drug policy is something new and dramatically different than what we've seen in the past: The complexity and scale of our drug problem requires a nationwide effort to support smart drug policies that reduce drug use and its consequences. Since day one, the Obama Administration has been engaged in an unprecedented government-wide effort to reform our nation's drug policies and restore balance to the way we deal with the drug problem.
It sounds pretty exciting, doesn't it? "Weed Wars" business gets $2.5M tax bill. Over the past 15 years, more than a dozen states have legalized marijuana for medical use, easing pain and helping the seriously ill.
But, reports CBS News correspondent John Blackstone, the federal government claims what began as a humanitarian effort is becoming a criminal enterprise. Business is brisk at a medical marijuana dispensary that claims to be the biggest in the country. Steve DeAngelo, of the Harborside Health Center in Northern California, told CBS News the facility sees 600 to 800 patients a day. Full coverage of the marijuana controversy in the U.S. "Of course, it is a very unique facility -- what patients can't find anywhere else," he said. DeAngelo opened the center in Oakland five years ago. DeAngelo said, "We have cannabis that you smoke and inhale.
Harborside is a $22 million a year operation run out of an anonymous warehouse. Melinda Haag, the U.S. attorney for Northern California, is among those pointing to abuse of what was to be an effort to help the sick. U.S. Rules That Marijuana Has No Medical Use. What Does Science Say? The U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) ruled on Friday that marijuana has “no accepted medical use” and should therefore remain illegal under federal law — regardless of conflicting state legislation allowing medical marijuana and despite hundreds of studies and centuries of medical practice attesting to the drug’s benefits. The judgment came in response to a 2002 petition by supporters of medical marijuana, which called on the government to reclassify cannabis, which is currently a Schedule I drug — like heroin, illegal for all uses — and to place it in Schedule III, IV or V, which would allow for common medical uses. The DEA ruled that marijuana has “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,” has a “high potential for abuse,” and “lacks an acceptable level of safety for use even under medical supervision.”