U.S. allows states to legalize recreational marijuana within limits

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

U.S. allows states to legalize recreational marijuana within limits
Source: Reuters - Thu, 29 Aug 2013 08:04 PM
Author: Reuters

By David Ingram

WASHINGTON, Aug 29 (Reuters) - In a move marijuana advocates hailed as a historic shift, the Obama administration on Thursday began giving U.S. states wide leeway to experiment with pot legalization and started by letting Colorado and Washington carry out new laws permitting recreational use.

The Justice Department said it would refocus marijuana enforcement nationwide by bringing criminal charges only in eight defined areas - such as distribution to minors - and giving breathing room to users, growers and related businesses that have feared prosecution.

The decisions end nearly a year of deliberation inside President Barack Obama's administration about how to react to the growing movement for relaxed U.S. marijuana laws.

Advocates for legalization welcomed the announcement as a major step toward ending what they called "marijuana prohibition."


Read more: http://www.trust.org/item/20130829195831-ndkjw/?source=search

[tridim]

1. Damn I'm tired of being right.

[Comrade Grumpy]

6. Not to worry. You're not right as often as you think.

[bemildred]

2. A tactical retreat. nt

[Hydra]

5. And we can't even be sure it is until the raids stop

I was excited to see this, but as someone else pointed out, until they take the schedule 1 off, it's not worth risking it.

[99th_Monkey]

22. Exactly! sad but true dept. nt

[bemildred]

28. I predict they will try to hang onto as much of the Drug War as they can.

For example, legal states will "leak" into illegal/medicinal states, and that will be used to legitimize continued enforcement of what's left of it, as well as the other issues outlined.

What Holder is saying is he's going to fight it out politically, state by state, he's cutting his losses, because he knows he can't win in court. The Feds right to regulate pot out of existence has always been questionable, and they have dealt with that right along by avoiding the question.

If he want to defund criminal gangs, I know a real quick way to do that, just legalize it and have the government produce it a cost + 10%, that should reduce the price to something like 1% of what it is now.

[someone else]

56. Get all gov't out of the MJ issue

Completely, no regulation, no taxation, no criminality, no prohibition........ if people want it, they can grow it or buy it. And just like alcohol, if they do something stupid while on it, bust them for that. This WOD is killing us. BTW, I don't partake of the evil weed.

[bemildred]

58. Yes, the status quo ante would work fine too, did for all of history up to the 1930s.

They made ropes with it, and used it as medicine. Modern life is very stressful, and pot is great for stress.

[eggplant]

3. "experiment with pot legalization"

Am I the only one who laughed at this turn of phrase?

[Rain Mcloud]

13. It is a Gateway Legalization.

Next they will try the harder stuff just to achieve a new high.
Maybe legalization of minority voting.
Part of me wants off this crazy train and part of me says:Faster,faster,FASTER!

[Ed Suspicious]

17. DUzy!

[eggplant]

19. I'm looking forward to watching "Reefer Legalization Madness"

where the crazy piano player signs legislation banning corporate personhood, reinstates Glass-Steagall, and pushes income tax rates back to where they were in the 90s.

The Horror! the Horror!

[kysrsoze]

4. In other news... DEA agents raided 20 California dispensaries

How many times have we heard the same old bullshit promises? It's still classified in the books as a Schedule 1 controlled substance. I'll believe it when I see some documented change, as opposed to one promise on top of many other empty ones.

[tridim]

8. Why were they raided? Got a link?

[Hekate]

7. Things are in motion, trending toward progress

also: told ya so
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3540583

I'm still not going to plant one in my backyard yet, but eventually I expect to as an experiment. I don't smoke it, but could sure use something for my aged bones and am willing to try out various recipes. (Several years ago a friend who uses it for her arthritis pressed some of her evening joint on me. Sadly all I got out of it was asthma and a hangover. So no smoke.)

My very conservative evangelical neighbor tells his Bible Study group that God gave mankind every herb for our use, and this herb is a blessed gift for his migraines. My sister is paying a fortune for her migraine medications ...

My son developed seizures and the medication takes the sharp edge off his intellect -- for a computer programmer this is a bummer on top of a bummer. (The new med is better than the old one, which made him dopey.) Could the new Charlotte's Web strain in Colorado be the answer?

The entire drug war has been an appalling, unending fiasco. It's not over yet, by a long shot, but I swear the end is in sight.

[SCVDem]

9. Lose the Schedule 1 classification

Along with the piss test fail, no job for you law!

[tridim]

12. That is coming, in 2014, after the mid-terms.

Sen. Lehey is on it as we type.

http://www.leahy.senate.gov/press/leahy-to-examine-marijuana-policy

[Politicalboi]

36. Yes get rid of the piss test

For MJ at employment. They gladly hire drinkers who brag about how wasted they get, but will fire you if you test positive for weed. I would hire stoners over drinkers any day. At least I would know they won't be nursing a hang over the next day.

[greiner3]

10. DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Til 'yer

[bucolic_frolic]

11. This provides another chance for the GOP

to be reactionary in 2014 and 2016 and boost their unpopularity
with the public. The timing of this move cannot be coincidence.

They're going to repeal Obamacare and rollback any hint of pot legalization,
while criminalizing women's free choice.

Not to worry. Fracking and lax environmental regulation will be their
freedoms of choice for corporations.

The Right to Lifers want to allow free pollution for you and your family,
and want everyone to carry guns.

[alfredo]

20. They say Libertarians are Republicans who smoke dope.

[jmowreader]

15. Expect a slew of anti-weed ads for next year's election

The Partnership for a Drug-Free America (founded by America's biggest Nicotine company and America's biggest Alcohol company) and FreedomWorks (founded by people who think everyone should be free to be fundamentalist Christians who vote Republican) have almost certainly bought the studio time, hired the actors and bought the airtime on every station in every district that has a Democrat representing it, with the exception of the ones in Southern California, Hawaii, Colorado and Washington State.

Remember the classic "this is your brain (whole egg), this is drugs (frying pan), this is your brain on drugs, this is your brain on drugs as part of a complete breakfast"?

[Bluenorthwest]

18. Southern California only? Not Northern California? What's your thinking there?

And such ads would be greeted with howls of derisive laughter here in Oregon and in the other Medical Marijuana States. Oregon will go full legal, probably next election cycle. I think you are dreaming of the past.

[jmowreader]

31. I'm dreaming of the places where these ads won't run

It's not likely they'd run these ads in Northern California either, tho it's possible - California has been responsible for such Republican atrocities as Bob Dornan, Randy Cunningham, Darrell Issa and Arnold Schwarzenegger. But seriously, they'd have more of a chance successfully selling the proposition that Weed Will Make Your Teenager Listen To Bad Music And Want To Have Sex All The Time (last I checked, just being a teenager is enough to do that) in Idaho or Kansas than in California or Washington.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

54. Everyone in Northern CA loves weed, pretty much across the political spectrum. n/t

[bemildred]

59. People have to make a living.

Since they cut all the trees and caught all the fish, the options up there are few, and government at all levels does not consider feeding them itself to be their job. Tourism is not enough, retirees are not enough, agriculture is not enough, and you can't have everybody work for the government either.

Plus, the pot growing brings boatloads of money, and in a poor county, everybody who needs money wants in. You talk to people up there, a lot of them like it illegal, because they know what will happen if it becomes legal.

Local authorities will WARN you if the feds are planning a raid and they find out, or at least such things do occur.

[Dustlawyer]

16. All I know is I hurt and it helps much better than the schedule 1 meds I take now!

My small fiber sensory neuropathy is a chronic (no pun intended) condition that works very well on the pain I suffer 24/7/365! This should not be a political issue, but then again, most issues we have today should not be political, but are. Glad to see we are headed in the right direction again!

[alfredo]

24. When I had an injury back in 1999, they put me on all kinds of pain killers. They worked, but

screwed up my stomach. I had to stop using them. On those "bad arm days" eating some pot brought relief. It removed the anxiety over the pain, and that lessened my suffering. It got me through a tough time.

Now an occasional aspirin is all I need.

[Dustlawyer]

35. Glad to hear your ok! Pot helps people with a variety of ailments, although it

works better on some types of pain than others.

[alfredo]

37. ReLieving the anxiety played a big part in pain relief.

[Sgent]

61. There are no prescription schedule 1 drugs

Ketamine, Vicodin, percoset and steroids are sch 3. Morphine, amphetamine and Cocaine are Schedule 2.

Schedule 1 is supposedly reserved for drugs with no medicinal value at all -- LSD, Opium, etc. the problem with schedule 1 drugs beyond everything else is that it becomes impossible to conduct research.

[99th_Monkey]

21. This could be the start of something BIG

I strongly suspect that many voters AND politicians in many states
have been "on the fence", wanting full legalization but NOT
wanting to "rock the boat" with the DoJ/DEA, perhaps triggering raids on
their local friends and neighbors.

This could indeed be a historic 'green light' that signals a coming
stampede of states to fully legalize.

Let's hope. It's high time.

[alfredo]

25. The economic benefits need to be touted to the states.

[99th_Monkey]

26. That should certainly help a lot ...

especially since most states & municipalities are pretty much bankrupt,
still paying for bailing out the Banksters.

[alfredo]

33. Small farmers should be able to grow industrial hemp too.

[Nye Bevan]

23. Wow. Sanity. (nt)

[BillyRibs]

27. Yeah Right,

I'll believe it when I see the Proverbial Box go in the hole!

[bobGandolf]

29. Great News!

Can't wait until it is legalized in MA.

[alfredo]

34. I'd like to see it legalized in Utah. I'm not from there, but it would be interesting to

see such a conservative state go green.

[RainDog]

38. A majority in Utah supports legal medical marijuana

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/poll-utahns-support-legalization-of-medical-marijuana/article_6491666f-a2f0-55de-b99b-f98e9ba9946c.html

according to a poll published yesterday.

The Utah AG came out in support of medical mj after he went through chemo a year or so ago, as well.

[alfredo]

45. Nothing like a little firsthand experience with the herb to change hearts.

[RainDog]

47. The AG said he didn't use mj for pain

but he saw the help it gave to others who did.

Sometimes just seeing the world from another person's perspective helps to generate empathy.

[alfredo]

49. Yeah, right. I bet he grazed through the evidence room, looking for some bud.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

55. Maybe one day soon...

...bud won't be found in evidence rooms anymore, but will instead grow freely and in the open. In the meantime, I want to see CA put legal, recreational marijuana up for a vote at the earliest opportunity.

[alfredo]

57. Legalization will save states and cities a lot of money.

[bobGandolf]

39. For a liberal state MA is ....

dragging it heels when the topic is pot. Even though the vast majority of the people wanted decriminalization the public safety 'corporation' fought like hell against. The same is true for medical marijuana use. Just passed last Fall. Lord knows how long it will take to get recreational use passed.

[alfredo]

46. Do you have privatized prisons?

[bobGandolf]

50. No, all state run n/t

[alfredo]

53. That's good. Our state just got rid of them.

Kentucky won't renew the contract with CCA.

[Android3.14]

30. Finally. Something good.

It's a start. Now about Syria, Guantanamo, and energy independence...

[blackspade]

32. One ray of sunshine from the administration!

This is good news.

[Uncle Joe]

40. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Judi Lynn.

[Fly by night]

41. Well, wadda ya' know! I might just get that pardon yet.

(Begin holding my breath .... again.)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x406969

[RainDog]

48. You most definitely should be pardoned

and hope it will happen. sooner rather than later.

[Marrah_G]

42. What about Med pot, will they stop going after those growers and sellers too?

[Mopar151]

43. That's supposed to be part of the deal

But there are hairs to be split for ambitious Federal Anti-Dopers

[Marrah_G]

44. Good, I have a couple friends in the business

[mike_c]

51. I wonder if they'll constrain U.S. Attorneys like Melinda Haag....

The official explanation for Haag's holy war on MMJ dispensaries in California was that even though Obama said it was not a priority, U.S. Attorneys have so much autonomy that Haag and her cronies could not be restrained as long as they were enforcing federal law.

So, do they have less autonomy now, or is this just going to be another broken promise?

edit-- corrected Haag's name.

[RainDog]

52. CA US Attn Haag to continue crackdown despite AG

according to this, at least -

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/LegalizationNation/archives/2013/08/30/us-attorney-melinda-haag-to-continue-crackdown-despite-white-house-directive

US Attorney Melinda Haag, who oversees the Northern District of California, has been trying to seize the property of Harborside Health Center, a permitted dispensary in Oakland, as well as its sister location in San Jose. Haag also is attempting to seize Berkley Patients Group's building in Berkeley, and has dismantled Mendocino County' medical pot farming permit program.

Lili Arauzhaase, speaking for the US Attorneys Office in the Northern District told us today:

"At this time the US Attorney is not releasing any public statements. The office is evaluating the new guidelines and for the most part it appears that the cases that have been brought in this district are already in compliance with the guidelines. Therefore, we do not expect a significant change."

[mike_c]

60. that's what I was afraid of....

eom