Moe Lane

This is, you know, really deep and stuff:

The federal government currently puts hemp in the same category of illegal drug as heroin, LSD and ecstasy — but the Senate’s top Republican wants to change that.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R – Ky., joined forces Thursday with a pair of West Coast Democrats — Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley — to cosponsor a bill that would allow American farmers to grow hemp without fear of punishment. Also on board is libertarian Rand Paul, McConnell’s fellow Republican Bluegrass State senator.

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If you can call it that.

I assume that Radley Balko was being sarcastic when he wrote this:

I was so very excited about all that sensible drug policy we were going to get out of President Obama in his second term. I mean sure, Obama had spent a good deal of his first term waging more raids on medical marijuana clinics in four years than Bush had waged in eight. And his administration defended DEA agents who point guns at the heads of children during drug raids. And his appointees continued to defend the carnage in Mexico as merely the consequence of good, sensible drug policy.

Sure. There was all of that. But there were also all of these progressive pundits who kept telling drug war reformers that they should go ahead and vote for Obama anyway . . . because they just knew, or at least they were pretty sure, or at least they had heard rumors, that maybe, possibly, Obama would turn the corner and show some leadership.

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This isn’t a told-you-so. Yet. But it’s a good way to bet:

Votes making Colorado and Washington the first U.S. states to legalize marijuana for recreational use could be short-lived victories for pot backers because the federal government will fight them, two former U.S. drug control officials said on Wednesday.

They said the federal government could sue to block parts of the measures or send threatening letters to marijuana shops, followed up by street-level clampdowns similar to those targeting medical marijuana dispensaries the government suspects are fronts for drug traffickers.

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Well, that was stupid of them.

Many of California’s most prominent and well-respected medical cannabis dispensaries and related facilities — including Oaksterdam University, Berkeley Patients Group, and Harborside Health Center (HHC) — flourished under the George W. Bush administration. But they’ll be lucky to survive President Barack Obama’s first term.

On Tuesday, federal prosecutors targeted Harborside Health Center in Oakland, as well as its sister facility in San Jose, for closure and civil asset forfeiture. In court papers filed by the US Attorney for the northern district of California, Melinda Haag, the federal government alleges that Harborside is “operating in violation of federal law” by providing cannabis to state-qualified patients.

Guess marijuana really does affect your long-term judgement.  Which might explain President Choom, come to think of it… nah, that’s too harsh.  Hey: just like the Obama administration!

…Too soon?

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Alternative title: Obama’s Betrayal Of The Choomers.

Let me just lay this out for you.

• Barack Obama smoked a lot of pot in high school and college. To the point of having a ‘Choom gang’ dedicated to smoking the stuff.
• I don’t particularly care about that.
• Obama has since become a standard tough-guy politician on the War on Some Drugs*.
• I care somewhat about that, but it’s something that happens with a lot of politicians.
• Obama giggles and sneers about the whole thing. Including sneering at the people upset with the situation.
• I care a heck of a lot about THAT.

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Shorter Penn Jillette (very, very profanely), about President Obama’s smirking about his past drug use and current status as the head honcho for the War On Some Drugs: “It’s not a G*d-d*mned joke!”

Oh, it’s a joke, all right.  The technical term for it is “Dark Humor,” and I when write that you should take into account that I used to write amateur gaming material for a roleplaying setting that had that concept be a literal evocation of Evil. (more…)

No, really.

This week the Republican-controlled New Hampshire House of Representatives passed a medical marijuana bill by a lopsided vote of 236 to 96, one day after Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat, threatened to veto the legislation. Last month the state Senate approved the bill, which would let patients with “debilitating medical conditions” or their “designated caregivers” grow and possess up to six ounces at a time, by a vote of 13 to 11, with all five Democrats and eight Republicans in favor.

Vai Instapundit.  Hey, you know who should be expressing an opinion on this?  Barack Obama, that’s who.  Preferably, on a New Hampshire college campus…

Moe Lane (more…)

Reason (and Instapundit) is as shocked as I am: apparently, in the course of fighting the War on Some Drugs, the DEA did a “massive drug raid” in Roswell, New Mexico last week.  In the course of said raid, they got a tip that a suspect was at a particular location, so they… (more…)

Apparently they’ll keep raiding medical marijuana growers; they’ve just stopped talking about it.

Despite campaign promises to the contrary, the Department of Justice under President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder hasn’t stopped raiding marijuana dispensaries operating in states where sale of the drug is legal for medical purposes. But the DOJ has demonstrated one marked change now that it’s under Democratic control: The department has stopped publicizing medical marijuana raids, both by requesting that more cases be sealed under court order and by refusing to distribute press releases.

This would be funny, except that there are people out there who use the stuff to fight nausea from chemotherapy*. And, heck, I got nothing against potheads generally. I do think that the ones that voted for Obama shouldn’t be really surprised about this, though.

Moe Lane

*Whether it actually works or not. My basic rule of thumb is to be really, really lenient about allowing stuff to people on chemo.

I normally more or less ignore whatever shenanigans that specific members of the Online Left get up to – you run your plays against the rival team, not their cheerleaders – but this news from Chris Good is too entertaining to pass up.

Jane Hamsher, the online progressive maven who heads the influential blog Firedoglake and its accompanying activist/political arm, Firedoglake (FDL) Action, is entering new territory today: she’s getting into the marijuana legalization game.

[snip]

[Hs launching a $500,000 (according to her estimate) coordinated campaign to support marijuana legalization on the whole and to influence a handful of propositions on ballots this November–California’s Prop. 19, which would allow counties to legalize and tax marijuana within certain guidelines plus medical marijuana initiatives in Colorado, Arizona, and South Dakota.

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As per this memo, medical marijuana users will no longer be targeted by the Department of Justice.  At least, in the states where medical marijuana is legal.  Well, it’s more like the DOJ is no longer requiring prosecutors to go after medical marijuana users.  If the case is unambiguous, at least.  The operating phrase is ‘limited resources:’ pot is still considered to be the Devil’s Drug by the federal government, and they reserve the right.

Just generally… reserve the right.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m happy that they’re going to stop going after chemotherapy patients.  But this is at the limit of easy, which means that it’s as far as the administration is going to go.  So I’d recommend against basing your future life choices on the likelihood of a more (ahem) liberal recreational drug policy…

Crossposted to RedState.

Moe Lane

Via Reason Hit & Run (and Instapundit), a (rare) definitive statement from this administration:

“Legalization is not in the president’s vocabulary, and it’s not in mine,” he said.

Kerlikowske said he can understand why legislators are talking about taxing marijuana cultivation to help cash-strapped government agencies in California. But the federal government views marijuana as a harmful and addictive drug, he said.

“Marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit,” Kerlikowske said in downtown Fresno while discussing Operation SOS—Save Our Sierra—a multiagency effort to eradicate marijuana in eastern Fresno County.

I hate to be mean-spirited about this, but the man picked Joe “RAVE Act” Biden to be his running mate. Why would any person expect this administration to be anything but more of the same on the War on Some Drugs?

Moe Lane (more…)