The Marijuana prohibition provides an unlikely window into weak federal representation.

[Poll_Blind]

I just have to rant a little bit.

According to Wikipedia, medical marijuana is legal in eighteen states and the District of Columbia. It's legal in Washington and Colorado. Twelve more states have legislation pending to legalize marijuana for medicinal use.

Just kinda soak that up for a second. Medical marijuana is legal in over 1/3 of the country, potentially 2/3 of the country if the pending legislation passes.

Unlike much other legislation, the legalization of marijuana in America has been a truly grass roots effort. It is an example, and a strong one, too, of how Americans can change their own country...at least up to a point. And I'm reminded of that "up to a point" when I read articles like this one on DU, about a California man who was prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to 10 years by the federal government for growing medical marijuana in his state- where it's been legal to do so since 1996.

Legal for seventeen years in his state!

Again, just kinda soak that up for a second. Legal for seventeen years.

And while you're doing it, come up with a guess for me when you think the federal government will address the issue.

Right now, the federal government is effectively at war with about 1/3 of American states. And this ain't over some basic human right like slavery or equality. And the fact that it's over something relatively silly (IMO) should tell you something about how little control Americans often have in shaping or directing their own country- though we are raised to honestly believe the country can be changed from the ground up.

How long is this going to go on? A year? A decade? Longer?

I'm 40 now. If I live to see 50, am I going to read about busts in over half the country by the federal government on its own citizens for doing something legal in their own state?

Can the situation be any more absurd? It doesn't feel like it can...but it will. Next time you read an article like the one I liked to above (and I'm sure you'll be seeing more of them) take a moment to savor just how absurd and pointless this conflict is.

There are hands on the steering wheel of this country. It takes situations like this to realize those hands aren't always our hands, as much as we'd desperately prefer to believe otherwise.

PB

[Warpy]

1. DEA defunding just never occurs to them as a way to save billions

but it would do so much for the civil rights of the population if that agency had to choose between being a bunch of paramilitary thugs leaning on doctors who prescribe narcotics and being an educational and treatment organization, the way Nixon wanted it. Yes, that Nixon. He wasn't all bad.

DHS and DEA are two agencies that really need to go. Both have had civil oppression as their mission creep. It's time to defund them until they're only a vestige, a dumping ground for a few incompetent big campaign donors, paying a salary for doing nothing but having one's picture taken for a website.

[Poll_Blind]

3. Yet, from my observations over the last 12+ years, "paramilitary thugs" are...

....going to be in our future for a long time to come.

One of the many tip-offs: The fact that we're still under a state of national emergency over the September 11th attacks. Extended for another year, every year, by Democrat and Republican president, alike. And all of the dubious powers that little signature grants...

My youngest son has never lived in an America that was not under a State of Emergency. I am not entirely sure I will live long enough to see "the other side" of this emergency- well over a year now after Bogeyman Numero Uno was found, dispatched, and ceremoniously tossed into the sea.

The DHS, DEA...From the Bush years I know a number of other, pre-existing federal programs were rollled into it. Could, would, the conglomeration ever be undone?

As a friend of mine would say, "The US is on a certain trajectory."

PB

[tama]

2. Cannabis has it's silly side

which is charming. But what is criminalized is most basic human right, individual's right to decide what you take in your body. And what has been criminalized is the use of substances that people have used since the dawn of man for healing. Not e.g. sniffing glue and eating steroids.

[FlyingTooLow]

6. This sums it up

"...the essence of tyranny is the enforcement of stupid laws,”
---Edmund Burke

[RainDog]

4. The only people with reefer madness are those who oppose it n/t

[FlyingTooLow]

5. 5 years in Federal Prison for marijuana

This horrible injustice has been going on for decades...why do we tolerate it? What has happened to our 'free' country?

George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry...they would all disown our cowardly, miserable, whining asses.
Have we really come to this?

I spent 5 years in Federal Prison for a marijuana offense.

While I was there, I watched armed bank robbers come and go in as little as 20 months.

After 3 years 'behind the wall,' I pointed this out to the parole board. Their response: “You must understand, yours was a very serious offense.”
How do you respond to that mentality?

I laughed about the parole panel's comment for 2 more years (as I still sat in prison), then wrote my book:

Shoulda Robbed a Bank

No, it is not a treatise on disproportionate sentences. I wrote about the escapades that led to my incarceration. I admit, I had a great time. No one was injured, no one was killed,...there were no victims.
We were Americans pursuing happiness in our own way. Harming no one...nor their property.

That’s my contribution to helping point out just how ludicrous our pot laws truly are.

[SidDithers]

8. Welcome to DU...nt

Sid

[TeamPooka]

7. Prohibition is a failed public polcy...again nt