cannabis

Crossposted at dKos

Another week has passed and again there were many noteworthy things going on in the cannabis realm. This will be a low graphics version. We will start this week with a lie. Not a big lie, mind you, just another in a series of lies meant to support the Big Lie about marijuana. This one comes from ONDCP Spokesman Tom Riley in this August 21st AFP story Thousands of pot lovers defiantly light-up at US hemp festival about the Seattle Hempfest.

The quote follows…

Federal officials view marijuana as a dependency-producing drug lacking medical benefit and see Hempfest activists as disconnected from reality, according to Tom Rile {sic} of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

“There’s an urban myth the we are filling jails with low-level marijuana users,” Riley told AFP. “Almost everyone in jail for pot is charged with trafficking in large amounts of marijuana.”

Wow, do these people carry cards in their wallets with this month’s script on it? Do they actually believe what comes out of their own mouths? And the real problem is that the media is a willing enabler by printing such quotes without question. When I was a kid I believed the things that I was told in school. Stuff like the sixth grade anti-drug program that we had. It was not taught by a law enforcement official, so it had a much kid friendly feel to it. The thing that I remember most was that they lit an incense cone that smelled like burning marijuana. The funny thing was is that I don’t remember exactly we were told to do if we smelled this smell that they were introducing to us for the first time. Remember this was over thirty years ago in the Midwest, so it was pre D.A.R.E. In the end the lies that are passed off as fact in anti-drug classes just come back and haunt them – even more so if it is a police officer telling them. A kid tries pot and realizes that they have been lied to. So, the kids things what about the other things that we told? A lot of other drugs are in a different league altogether, but since what they were told about marijuana was a lie then… There is your gateway right there.

The next item on this week’s list is a post made by Jacob Sullum at Reason’s blog – Hit & Run. In the post Stevens: The Constitution Made Me Do It Mr Sullum wrote that:

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens feels bad about the outcomes of Raich and Kelo but says the Constitution compelled him to support the federal crackdown on medical marijuana in California and the wanton use of eminent domain in Connecticut, both of which he opposes as a matter of policy. Since growing marijuana in your yard for your own medical use is so plainly an element of interstate commerce and a hotel is so obviously a “public use” that justifies forcible property transfers, what choice did he have?

This post was in response to the New York Times story Justice Weighs Desire v. Duty (Duty Prevails) by Linda Greenhouse:

Justice Stevens said he also regretted having to rule in favor of the federal government’s ability to enforce its narcotics laws and thus trump California’s medical marijuana initiative. “I have no hesitation in telling you that I agree with the policy choice made by the millions of California voters,” he said. But given the broader stakes for the power of Congress to regulate commerce, he added, “our duty to uphold the application of the federal statute was pellucidly clear.”

Unfortunately it sounds more like a cop out to me. Justice Stevens feels bad about his decision in Raich and now goes out on the lecture circuit to make his feelings known. Methinks that a legal mind of that caliber could have just as easily have made a better decision and found compelling arguments for it. Plus he would not feel that he had made the wrong decision.

And finally we have the hearings before administrative law judge Mary Ellen Bittner to see if eminent agronomist Dr Lyle Craker of the University of Massachusetts can grow his own marijuana for his research instead of the schwag from Ole Miss. Dr Cracker is already supported by Massachusetts’ senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry as well as the ACLU. There is plenty of good reading material on the hearings on the Internet. There is the ACLU press release Hearings Begin Today in ACLU Challenge to Government Obstruction of Medical Marijuana Research. Here is the ACLU’s Medical Marijuana Page. Of course the moralists want to chime in on this one. Focus on the Family had Bill Wilson grab their template and churn out ACLU Wants DEA Approval for Marijuana Research. Be sure to look for the priceless quote from  Dr. Gene Rudd of the Christian Medical and Dental Association.

By far the best coverage of the hearings was the blog by Rick Doblin Notes on the MAPS/Craker/DEA hearing concerning the establishment of a pilot medical marijuana production facility at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. MAPS has the right idea, but right now politics seems to trump science. Let us hope that there will be some good changes on this front soon.

As always, there is a lot to read and a lot to think about. Once you have please go out and do something positive. I’m Cannabis and that’s it for “This Week In Marihuana.”