Administration Weighs Legal Action Against States That Legalized Marijuana Use
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
Published: December 6, 2012
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/07/us/marijuana-initiatives-in-2-states-set-federal-officials-scrambling.html>
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<http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17684-speaking-of-government-revenue-shortfalls-tax-marijuana-instead-of-prosecuting-it>
Monday, 10 December 2012
Speaking of Government Revenue Shortfalls, Tax Marijuana Instead of
Prosecuting It
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
Why is Obama prosecuting marijuana?
The shark teeth writing
<http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/obamas-crackdown-on-marijuana-referenda-120712>
of Charles P. Pierce got its jaws-like grip into the Obama
administration for its inexplicable continuing crackdown on state and
municipal laws legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana use:
If nothing else, the results in Colorado and in Washington state -
and, to a lesser extent, in Massachusetts - indicate that the
political salience of the "war on drugs," as applied to marijuana,
at least, almost has completely evaporated. It can be argued that
there is no more political risk to the president of changing his
policy on marijuana now than there was in his "evolving" on gay
marriage last year. In both cases, the people out in the states are
out ahead of the national politics of the issue.
But, as Pierce points out, the White House and Department of Justice
are not only going to likely continue their wasteful prosecution
against marijuana, despite laws passed on cities and states, it may
very well expand the baffling war on weed, according to a New York
Times article
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/07/us/marijuana-initiatives-in-2-states-set-federal-officials-scrambling.html>:
Senior White House and Justice Department [DOJ] officials are
considering plans for legal action against Colorado and Washington
that could undermine voter-approved initiatives to legalize the
recreational use of marijuana in those states, according to several
people familiar with the deliberations.
The Obama administration declined to comment on the deliberations,
but pointed to a statement the Justice Department issued on
Wednesday - the day before the initiative took effect in Washington
- in the name of the United States attorney in Seattle, Jenny A.
Durkan. She warned Washington residents that the drug remained
illegal.
"In enacting the Controlled Substances Act, Congress determined that
marijuana is a Schedule I controlled substance," she said.
"Regardless of any changes in state law, including the change that
will go into effect on December 6 in Washington State, growing,
selling or possessing any amount of marijuana remains illegal under
federal law."
That's a lot of bureaucratic blather that amounts to the same old
marijuana scares of DC politicians who support prosecution while
downing alcohol at Capitol Hill social events. What perplexes Pierce
is that usually politicians engage in such counterproductive activity
when they believe the majority of the public supports a given policy,
but in this case states and cities are whizzing past the DOJ.
Continuing a marijuana legal enforcement policy based on classifying
it as a Schedule 1 controlled substance is a tragic farce, the
hypocrisy of an alcohol chugging-tobacco-lobby-driven capitol that
maintains a peculiar double standard on marijuana.
What's more, as countless persons have pointed out, at a time of
debate over revenue shortfalls on all levels of government, wouldn't
allowing the legalization of marijuana without federal interference
create a tax bonanza for cash-strapped states and cities?
Yes, it would be ludicrous to claim that tax revenues on marijuana
would close the federal budget gap (cut military spending and raise
taxes on those who need to pay their fair share for the benefits of
democracy), but it could surely help contributing to alleviate it.
Many states, counties and cities rely on booze and cigarette taxes to
help fill their coffers, not to mention the federal government.
Furthermore, making the marijuana industry a home grown product
beyond Humboldt County, California, and other illicit hot spots would
keep a lot of dollars that go to growers south of the border in the
United States. Heck, the US might become, in the long-term, a net
exporter of marijuana. (Just don't let Monsanto obtain a monopoly GMO
patent on the ganja weed.)
And while other drugs, including cocaine and an increasing amount of
meth are critical to the narco trafficking through Mexico, allowing
marijuana use and cultivation in the US would reduce at least one of
the drugs that the US is conducting a crusade against (via the
corrupt forces of the Mexican government, military and police), a
crusade that is killing tens of thousands of Mexicans in a failed
show war.
As Pierce skeptically challenges the White House's obsession with
banning the consumption of Alice B. Toklas cookies and the like,
And, after three decades of wasteful spending, truncated personal
liberties, and feckless cultural hysteria, we are now preparing to
throw that much good money after that much bad? This is not just bad
public policy, because it's such an obvious waste of time and
resources. And this is not just bad politics, because the president
is blowing an opportunity to correct the obvious waste of time and
resources, and to do so in a direction in which the country is
already moving. This is completely freaking nuts.
If you had two focus groups: one getting drunk on whiskey, and one
getting high on marijuana, what would be the different end results?
Well, with the drunk group, you might end up with one or two of the
participants getting into car accidents on the way home; if some of
them didn't get into fights and arguments during the session; and if
any one of them had a gun, all bets are off.
As for the group smoking marijuana, you might end up with one or two
of them sitting with their legs crossed mesmerized by a kitten
crossing a window sill; three of them listening to music on their
I-Pods, with one of them singing along very loudly; and a couple
making out.
So why is marijuana the banned control substance?
Like Pearce wrote, "This is completely freaking nuts."
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