UN official calls for marijuana ballot rollback

[mia]

Source: The Boston Globe

VIENNA (AP) — The head of the U.N. drug watchdog agency is urging U.S. federal officials to challenge ballot measures in Colorado and Washington that decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana for adults 21 and over.


Raymond Yans says the approvals send ‘‘a wrong message to the rest of the nation and it sends a wrong message abroad.’’


Yans heads the International Narcotics Control Board. He told The Associated Press on Tuesday he hopes Attorney General Eric Holder ‘‘will take all the necessary measures’’ to ensure that marijuana possession and use remains illegal throughout the U.S.


Both states are holding off on plans to regulate and tax the drug while waiting to see whether the Justice Department will assert federal authority over drug law....

Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/world/united-nations/2012/11/20/official-calls-for-marijuana-ballot-rollback/QEqcQ9iGNYt6U7AWyy8BLM/story.html

[bluedigger]

1. Okay, so, he's dutifully on the record.

[Warpy]

2. Yans needs to grow up and smell the disaster

that a war on a simple plant has caused.

The only people this bogus war is good for is the scumbags who head up the drug gangs.

They haven't stopped a single person who wants it. They haven't "saved" a single child from it. They've just thrown some of those children into prison for the bulk of their useful lives.

Mr. Yans, you are wrong. End it now.

[ROBROX]

19. TOBACCO

The nasty weed people who want more smokers to buy their cancer sticks do not want people to home grow their won smoke which does not cause cancer and is nicer to smoke.

[Warpy]

22. The home grown tobacco is just as nasty

However, without all the chemical "enhancers," it might be less tasty to smokers and they might smoke a bit less.

Then again, nicotine is so very addictive that this is not going to be the case.

Backyard pot has a better case to be made than backyard tobacco, although it's a theft target. I think people will still use grow lights in a spare bathroom rather than grow it in the back yard for this reason.

Tobacco companies don't care, they've had copyrights on trade names for joints for decades.

[Comrade Grumpy]

37. ...and the scumbags who head up the anti-drug gangs.

Who benefits from pot prohibition?

Law enforcement

Prosecutors and the defense bar

The incarceration complex

The forced drug treatment industry

[villager]

3. Who's this fuckhead? Is he paid to issue dire warnings to folks in Amsterdam, too?

n/t

[truedelphi]

13. Big Pharmaceutical firms have plenty of dollars to

Pay off people like this.

As well as to contribute to politicians running for office on both sides of the aisle.

[YOHABLO]

27. You Got That Right ... they don't want to see their....

profits in the anti depressant and anti anxiety drugs market decline ... among other medicinal uses for marijuana.

[tridim]

52. Yep that's my theory too, less anxious consumers are very bad for business.

Same with tumorless consumers.

[Comrade Grumpy]

38. Yes, that is his job, to hector countries into compliance with the UN anti-drug treaties.

The Dutch ignore the INCB with their cannabis cafes.

The Europeans, Canadians, and Australians ignore the INCB with their safe injection sites.

The Bolivians ignore the INCB with their coca production.

We, too, can ignore the INCB and legalize weed.

[Panasonic]

4. Panasonic to Yan: FUCK YOU. FUCK OFF.

First, deal with the problem you have over in Europe before you tell our states what to do.

Last i checked, Portugual, Netherlands and a few other states have legalized or decriminalized harder stuff than pot.

[Stainless]

5. Raymond Yans must be on the Drug Cartels payroll......

Or else he is afraid of losing his job. What a dick head!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

6. what about other countries?

[Ken Burch]

7. OK, this guy is in the pay of the drug kingpins. n/t.

[jerseyjack]

8. Time for jury nullification if the feds prosecute.

[jberryhill]

9. Does he know how easy it is to get weed in Vienna

The UN doesn't have to go out of their way if they want to find weed.

Hey, buddy, when you get back to Geneva, take the #19 tram from UN HQ at Palais to the stop at Cornavin. Walk about two blocks from there to the lake on Rue des Alpes. Wait around for about 5 minutes and if you don't walk away with 5g for 50 euro, then you couldn't find a Slurpee in a 7-11.

You'll be back at your desk in 15 minutes.

[StrictlyRockers]

32. Thanks for the tip!

Good on ya!

[jberryhill]

34. They sell cannabis tea in convenience stores in Switzerland

In Interlaken, you can buy seeds over the counter.

For the UN to go off on this is ridiculous.

[Bluenorthwest]

36. Yans is Belgian. You can buy seeds legally in Belgium as well. Also you can grow them

legally and personal possession of small amounts is perfectly legal. Yans claims the United States has no right to do what his own nation did years ago.

[DiverDave]

43. Is that the hash price?

When I was stationed outside Nuremberg,( a small town called Schwabach) I could go into town, right across from the hauptbahnhof and score 90 grams for 50 bucks.
Had a scary encounter with the local polizei, I was across the street from the train station, having just arrived to score, and they drove their car right up on the sidewalk and jumped out.
The one kept asking me "you have the hash,yeah?" and I kept saying no as they turned out my pockets and even took my zippo apart to look in the bottom.
I kept saying over and over "just please dont hit me with that stick (they were pretty liberal with it if they perceived you were resisting)
Since I hadnt bought anything yet, they had to let me go, I copped and hung out in a bar for awhile before I went back to the train station.
I was shaking for a good while after that encounter, I'll tell you.

[jberryhill]

47. I don't know...

That's what any number of people will spontaneously offer in that area of town if you stand in one place too long. Whatever in particular the goods are, I don't know.

[leveymg]

10. Abstinence and sobriety are an intoxicating experience for some people. Humor this poor sod.

He's the inside-out version of Aqualung.

[99th_Monkey]

11. Screw Mr. Yans and the bogus "Drug War" he rode in on.

Jeesus. I thought the US was supposed to be, you know, like operating
in the 21st Century, not a retrograde Reefer Madness revisited.

[Trillo]

12. Aha, a global business.

A light bulb moment.

[marble falls]

14. OH NO!!! New World Order, New World Order, man!!

[neoconn]

15. Who the fudge is this dude?

Stay the hell out of America's business specially in relations to our "drug war". Who lining this dickweed's pocket?

(Like the pun?)

[christx30]

16. Yeah it doesn't matter

what the people of these states want. It's the desires of the powerful elite that matter. Who do those people think they are? Deciding what laws they want to live under? They should bow down and live like sheep, and let people like Yans run their lives.

[LW1977]

17. I hate to quote Dick Cheney

...but in regard to Raymond Yans, Go f•ck yourself! (with a cactus colonoscopy style)

[Matariki]

18. Oh no. Can I expect the UN black helicopters to be hovering over Seattle soon?

lol.

[defacto7]

20. What business is it of his?

it sends ‘‘a wrong message to the rest of the nation and it sends a wrong message abroad.’’

Yeah.. it sends the message that people want to be free from the machine, free for the drug cartels, free to exercise our human right to seek happiness. What "wrong" message?? There is absolutely no evidence that legalizing drugs has any adverse effect on society. On the contrary, there is great evidence that it alleviates most of the the horrible effects of said prohibition.

This guy is a deluded prude or nuts...

[SariesNightly]

21. Time for Obama to make a stand

Don't bend don't break baby don't back down

[jtuck004]

23. Hey Ray - have you ever seen the moon over Seattle?

[hrmjustin]

24. Un needs to shut up on this and find ways of ending the bombings in i/p and syria

[mountain grammy]

25. One would think, someone who "heads the International

'Narcotics' Control Board" would know what a narcotic is and what a narcotic isn't. Mr. Yans, STFU.

[truedelphi]

28. + 10,000 n/t

[bluestateguy]

26. Is there a reason why the UN needs to be in New York?

They are just taking up valuable real estate.

[loudsue]

29. This guy must be making money off of it himself. He doesn't want his $$ stream

messed up.

[gtar100]

30. That was my first thought too.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

31. uh huh, First they come for your pot plants...

then they come for your property rights, its Agenda 21! its the NWO! Why does Mr. Yans hate democracy so much?

[Scuba]

33. Great chance for Barack to show the wingers that he's not a UN toadie!

"Make drugs illegal", says the guy who makes his living off drugs being illegal.

[truedelphi]

39. How does Yans make his living?

Not familiar with that part of the overall story.

Curious minds would like to know.

[Scuba]

40. "Yans heads the International Narcotics Control Board."

[Bluenorthwest]

35. Yans hates Amercian democracy in a most hypocritical way. He is from Belgium

which has some of the world's most liberal marijuana laws. Yans says his nation is free to do so, but ours must not? Yes, that is what he says.
Since 2003, the Belgian government has made the possession and use of marijuana legal under the following conditions:

• The amount possessed is 5 grams or less

• You are over 18

• You do not smoke in the presence of minors

• You do not smoke in public

You can buy marijuana seeds and grow them in Belgium without penalty – however, you are only allowed to own one female plant.

[CanSocDem]

45. Convincing evidence...

...that he is someones 'mouthpiece'. Not even us dumb NORTH Americans are blind to that level of hypocrisy.

.

[sarcasmo]

41. This makes my blood boil.

[modem77]

44. A drug warrior is afraid he is going to lose relevancy and power. Cry me a river.

[grantcart]

46. Raymond seems to be a candidate for "person most in need of a joint" for 2012.

And this is from someone who never has

[Egalitarian Thug]

48. IOW, this might jeopardize my job. n/t

[Dems50State]

49. this is scary

As much as I want to attack this guy for being a idiot I do not want to agree with the right-wing about the UN. God the headache this gives me trying to figure out why he would attack pot like that. Thank God Colorado is one of the states setting the ways. I'm proud of my state for this. The voters got it right. Pot is harmless.

[slackmaster]

50. I see it as common ground among Americans of diverse political beliefs

In the abstract it's about self-determination, something that the right and the left basically believe in though the examples they choose to advocate for usually differ.

Embrace the moment.

[MjolnirTime]

51. Good thing this clown has no real authority.