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  1. #1
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    no chance of passing, nonetheless it's newsworthy that legalization is being proposed
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    An effort is building in Congress to change U.S. marijuana laws, including moves to legalize the industrial production of hemp and establish a hefty federal pot tax.

    While passage this year could be a longshot, lawmakers from both parties have been quietly working on several bills, the first of which Democratic Reps. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon and Jared Polis of Colorado plan to introduce Tuesday, Blumenauer told The Associated Press.


    Polis' measure would regulate marijuana the way the federal government handles alcohol: In states that legalize pot, growers would have to obtain a federal permit. Oversight of marijuana would be removed from the Drug Enforcement Administration and given to the newly renamed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Marijuana and Firearms, and it would remain illegal to bring marijuana from a state where it's legal to one where it isn't.
    The bill is based on a legalization measure previously pushed by former Reps. Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Ron Paul of Texas.


    Blumenauer's bill would create a federal marijuana excise tax of 50 percent on the "first sale" of marijuana - typically, from a grower to a processor or retailer. It also would tax pot producers or importers $1,000 annually and other marijuana businesses $500.
    http://seattletimes.com/html/politic...acongress.html

  2. #2
    on instagram, str8 flexin DUNCANownsKOBE's Avatar
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    If the feds wanna tax weed and regulate the out of it, fine by me, but that means it should be legalized at the national level.

    It's gonna be hilarious if any of these bills make it to a vote and we start seeing all the tea baggers who preach small government lobbying to keep it illegal.

  3. #3
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    "a hefty federal pot tax."

    it shouldn't be any more than taxes on alcohol.

    do you need a federal permit to make "craft beer", home wine? will you need a federal permit to grow a few mj plants for home consumption?

    The alcohol industry, as we saw in CA's defeated mj proposition, owns enough politicians, federal and state, to block mj liberalization.

    The puritanical "Christians", many of whom drink alcohol, will help block mj liberalization.



  4. #4
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    matter of time, tbh. time and policy aren't static, as you often suggest.

  5. #5
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    Federal Court Denies Lawsuit Claiming Marijuana's Medical Benefits

    a federal appeals court on Jan. 22 rejected a lawsuit intended to force the Drug Enforcement Administration to move marijuana out of Schedule I, the federal law that classifies marijuana as a dangerous drug with no valid medical use.


    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 that the medical-marijuana advocates who filed the suit—Americans for Safe Access, a California-based patient-advocacy group; the Coalition to Reschedule Cannabis, Patients Out of Time, and four individual medical users, including Air Force veteran Michael Krawitz—had not proved that the DEA’s decision to keep marijuana in Schedule I was “arbitrary and capricious.” The court held that marijuana had failed to meet the five standards the DEA sets for drugs to qualify as having a valid medical use.
    http://www.alternet.org/drugs/federa...dical-benefits

    With corporate money, the politicians its owns, and a compliant judiciary and the $Bs pocketed by the PIC from mj enforcement, plus the entire stat-padding police force against, the barriers to mj liberalization, even for medical purposes, ARE effectively "static", immovable.

  6. #6
    I play pretty, no? TeyshaBlue's Avatar
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    matter of time, tbh. time and policy aren't static, as you often suggest.
    Troof.

  7. #7
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    We'll see, unknown for now, how the DoJ reacts to WA and CO. If a Barry's Dem DoJ prosecutes WA and CO mj offenders, then you know damn well a Repug DoJ will, too.

    http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/v...ourceID=002481

    http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/v...ourceID=000881

    The states' liberalizations are useless if DoJ blocks them.

    Many stories like this one:

    Montana medical marijuana grower gets 5 years in federal prison

    http://missoulian.com/news/local/medical-marijuana-grower-gets-years-in-federal-prison/article_89211f90-6ca5-11e2-aa17-001a4bcf887a.html

  8. #8
    I cannot grok its fullnes leemajors's Avatar
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    They are growing hemp in CO, I am more interested to see what DoJ may do about that.

  9. #9
    Veteran Th'Pusher's Avatar
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    They are growing hemp in CO, I am more interested to see what DoJ may do about that.
    Related: http://www.npr.org/2013/01/28/170300...do-pot-measure

  10. #10
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    USA is the ONLY industrial country that criminalizes hemp growing. America really, really tries to be stupid, and succeeds.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp

  11. #11
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    DOJ backs sentencing reform. the position is advisory, but nevertheless newsworthy:

    The Justice Department is formally backing a proposal being considered by the U.S. Sentencing Commission that would shorten the amount of time that federal drug offenders currently behind bars would have to spend in prison.

    The proposal would apply only to nonviolent drug offenders and would be expected to save taxpayers $2.4 billion. The U.S. Sentencing Commission, which already approved a proposal to lower certain drug sentencing guidelines, will vote next month on whether to make those changes retroactive.


    “Under the department’s proposal, if your offense was nonviolent, did not involve a weapon, and you do not have a significant criminal history, then you would be eligible to apply for a reduced sentence in accordance with the new rules approved by the Commission in April,” Attorney General Eric Holder, who has made criminal justice reform a priority in the second term of the Obama administration, said in a statement.


    “Not everyone in prison for a drug-related offense would be eligible," Holder continued. "Nor would everyone who is eligible be guaranteed a reduced sentence. But this proposal strikes the best balance between protecting public safety and addressing the overcrowding of our prison system that has been exacerbated by unnecessarily long sentences.”
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5479049.html

  12. #12
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    The NV shooter loser's life really went downhill after he was busted for selling mj to family and friends, so he claims. Lost his job, etc, etc, no prospects, blamed the govt, etc, etc.

    Would 2 cops be alive if mj were decriminalized?

    Of course, cops everywhere love mj because it helps them JimCrow blacks and browns and run their arrest quota.

  13. #13
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    Obama can move mj from Schedule I to Schedule lower, or even off the Schedule completely.

  14. #14
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    OTOH, DEA threatens doctors with ties to dispensaries:
    Federal agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration are being accused of threatening doctors affiliated with medical marijuana dispensaries in Massachusetts, allegedly telling them they would lose their federal licenses to prescribe medications unless they cut their ties to marijuana firms.

    The Boston Globe and MassLive.com reported on the apparent crackdown Friday, with the Globe finding at least three doctors who had allegedly been visited at their homes or offices by DEA agents.


    Dr. Samuel Mazza, chief executive of the Debilitating Medical Conditions Treatment Centers, which has preliminary state approval to open a medical marijuana dispensary, told the Globe that he came back from vacation in February and found a DEA business card on the door of his home and several messages on his answering machine. Mazza accused DEA investigator Gregory Kelly of spelling out his options quite directly.


    “You either give up your [DEA] license or give up your position on the board ... or you challenge it in court," Mazza said Kelly told him. The doctor ultimately decided to surrender his prescription license since he didn't really need it in his part-time job performing surgeries at a Veterans Affairs medical center, but the Globe reported that at least two other doctors have given up their positions with medical marijuana firms.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5460077.html

  15. #15

  16. #16
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    War on Drugs is a PIC business

    How the Government Bribes Police to Arrest People For Smoking Pot


    Activists have long claimed that cops have quotas for ticketing and arresting people, but evidence to support those claims varies from state to state. However, newly obtained do ents reveal that local police agencies have indeed used the number of low-level drug arrests to sustain critical law enforcement funding from the federal government under a program called the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program.


    You may have heard of the Byrne Grant program from Mic e Alexander’s book The New Jim Crowe. Alexander writes,

    “The Byrne program was designed to encourage every federal grant recipient to help fight the War on Drugs. Millions of dollars in federal aid have been offered to state and local law enforcement agencies willing to wage the war.”

    Scholars say the program has had a major impact on the precipitous rise of low-level drug arrests over the last twenty years.


    “This money has helped reshape policing strategies and policies in major cities and a lot of rural areas throughout the United States,” says Harry Levine, a sociologist at Queens College, CUNY, who has studied drug policy for decades. “Although the government claims [Byrne grant money] goes toward apprehending high level traffickers, it’s often very low level people who get arrested. It targets low-income people and people of color much more than anyone understands.”

    Nationwide, reforming our bloated prison system—the largest in the world—and the drug laws that fed its growth is coming into vogue, after decades of either willful ignorance or complicity by political and media establishments. Yet little attention is being given to pieces of the apparatus that sustain racist and class-based patterns of arrests and prosecutions. The Byrne grant program may well be at the heart of this arrangement.

    Launched in 1988, the Byrne grant program was most recently invigorated in 2009 with $2 billion from President Obama’s signature recovery act. Here’s how it works: At the beginning of every fiscal year, states participating in the program receive a certain amount of funds from the federal Bureau of Justice Assistance. The money first goes to the highest criminal justice agency in a given state (for example, the State Division Criminal Justice Services in New York), which then doles out the money to local precincts based on a compe ive application process. At the end of the fiscal year, a state’s criminal justice agency must submit a “state annual report” to the federal government indicating how the Byrne funds were spent, using certain “performance measures” to show productivity and qualify for renewed funding.


    These performance measures are universal across all states, and have not changed in the program’s 26-year existence. And here’s what they are, taken directly from one of the reports:


    Source: Tennessee 2004 Byrne Annual Report

    The Marijuana Arrest Research Project obtained a total of 20 state annual reports from 10 states and territories. The do ents span from fiscal year 2000 to 2013. Across all the reports, we found similar trends. Below are some of our most significant findings.


    1. Marijuana related arrests and seizures are, by far, the most common “productivity measure” across states


    In the reports we examined, states listed the raw volume of drugs seized to show productivity. In nearly all of the reports, the amount of cannabis seized significantly dwarfs all other drugs. Here's a typical example from Missouri's state annual report showing total volume of drugs seized:



    We also discovered that the simple possession of marijuana is, overall among all states examined, the most frequent arrest and conviction cited as a productivity measure. Here's a chart showing top drug arrests and prosecutions in Arizona in 2013:



    Source: Arizona 2013 Edge Report (its version of Byrne Annual Reports)

    Culling together data from Byrne grant state annual reports and a 2013 ACLU report called “Marijuana Arrests in Black and White” reveals an ugly reality about the war on drugs: through the promise of Byrne grant funding, the federal government is using tax dollars that incentivize local police forces to arrest non-criminal young men of color.


    The ACLU report reveals that nationwide, the number of marijuana-related arrests rose 18% between 2001 and 2010, and of those, 7 million (out of 8 million) were for simple possession. In 2010, over half (52%) of all drug arrests were for marijuana, and of those, 88% were for simple possession.


    Source: ACLU

    Even more startling, the ACLU report notes that blacks are nearly four times as likely as whites to be arrested for marijuana possession (data on Latino marijuana arrests is inconclusive due to outdated modes of categorizing arrestees by race). Furthermore, 71% of all marijuana possession arrestees were between the ages of 16 and 29, and 6% were 15 or younger.


    Source: ACLU

    The state annual reports do not usually break down arrests by any sort of personal identifies—race, age, etc.—but a cross comparison with the ACLU’s data, along with a trip to any probation office or jailhouse in the country, more than affirms the assertion that Byrne dollars create motives to arrest black and brown youth, saddling them with all the baggage that comes with an arrest and possible criminal conviction. But no matter to the police: they get paid to haul in people for low-level drug crimes, and for some officers, their jobs literally depend on making those arrests.


    2. Police used Byrne grant funds for officer payroll


    Byrne grant money is officially meant for special narcotics squads called multijurisdictional task forces, but the money can also be allotted to prosecutors and police officers, especially in the service of drug crime. Although Byrne money can be put toward non-enforcement endeavors like drug treatment, courts, and crime prevention, the vast majority [3] of Byrne money is spent on “law enforcement.”


    Some of the state annual reports are surprisingly candid about how necessary the Byrne money is for sustaining certain law enforcement operations. This is from Missouri’s 2013 report:



    Source: Missouri 2013 Byrne Annual Report

    Similar language is found in Iowa’s 2006 report:




    Source: Iowa 2006 Byrne Annual Report 2013

    New York’s 2013 report notes that a whole investigative unit was supported with Byrne money. Although many would agree that violent crimes should be investigated, keep in mind how often states use low-level possession arrests to keep the spigot of salary-sustaining federal money flowing.


    Source: New York 2013 Byrne Annual Report

    Louisiana’s 2013 state annual report shows that federal funds were used to subsidizethousands of overtime hours for dozens of officers in a twelve-month period, and officers themselves noted how invaluable those hours were to the livelihoods of their officers:



    Source: Louisiana 2013 Byrne Annual Report

    It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the more low-level drug arrests cops make, the more assured their federal funds will be, and the more stable the salaries of officers will remain.


    But it isn’t only overtime hours that Byrne money pays for: local police have also used federal dollars to buy virtually any kind of equipment they need, rendering the funds even more sacrosanct.


    3. Cash-starved precincts use Byrne funds to seize and buy anything they need


    As states have cut funding to virtually all public services in the last few years, subsidies from Washington have become even more critical to police, according to the reports we examined.

    “With Byrne grant money,” says Harry Levine, “the police can buy all kinds of stuff - police cars, bullet proof vests, computers, bullets - buy whatever they want.” The state annual reports confirm just that.


    Source: Missouri 2013 Byrne Annual Report

    Many of the firearms obtained through Byrne grant funding aren’t directly purchased with the funds; rather, the federal dollars pay for programs that enable cops to seize weapons from people they apprehend. Even if those arrested are acquitted on all charges, police can still keep anything they confiscate in the course of making an arrest, under an overarching policy called civil asset forfeiture.


    Source: Arizona 2013 Edge Report (its version of Byrne Annual Reports)


    Source: New York 2013 Byrne Annual Report

    Budget tightening has made federal dollars even more precious. Missouri’s 2013 state annual report explicitly makes that point:



    Source: Missouri 2013 Byrne Annual Report

    In rural communities, where funds for law enforcement are slim, Byrne money is even more critical than for urban places:



    Source: Idaho 2003 Byrne Annual Report

    To summarize: states can only renew their Byrne grant funding if they impress the government with their state annual reports. States show they’re putting funds to good use by touting the number of drug arrests made and prosecutions opened, along with the volume of assets and drugs seized. This funding lifeline has shifted policing tactics to focus heavily on the apprehension of low-level drug offenders, especially on those in possession of the most benign and abundant illegal drug: marijuana.


    Data from the ACLU shows that the overwhelming majority of those arrested for minor marijuana possession are non-white youth. These young people are the cash cows that police apprehend in order to fatten arrest statistics submitted in state annual reports. Without these arrests, police in cash-strapped states could not sustain federal funding for vital priorities: overtime salaries, vehicles, ballistic vests, and so on.


    Any program that pegs law enforcement funding to a raw volume of arrests and prosecutions, without acknowledging systemic racial and class-based biases in policing, will inevitably exacerbate and perpetuate the racial disparities that exist at every level of our criminal justice system. The Byrne grant program not only demands the arrest and prosecution of low-level offenders, but also ties the livelihoods of dozens of police precincts across the country to those numbers. If we are ready to undo the harm wrought by decades of aggressive policing and incarceration, then we must decide to finally kill the Byrne grant program.


    Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/civil-libert...le-smoking-pot

  17. #17
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    Yes, We Can ... nabis

    An overwhelming majority of Americans believe that the legalization of marijuana is inevitable. We’ll soon find out if they’re right.

    Voters in Alaska and possibly Oregon will decide this November whether their states will join Colorado and Washington in legalizing the commercial sale and recreational use of pot. Similar initiatives are at varying stages in more than a half-dozen other states—Nevada, Arizona, and California among them—where advocates are looking toward 2016, when they hope the presidential election will turn out enough liberals to push those efforts across the finish line. All told, more than 1 in 5 Americans live in states where marijuana use has a legitimate chance to become legal between now and when President Obama leaves office.


    It’s not just at the ballot box where the pro-pot crowd is putting points on the board. Lawmakers in at least 40 states have eased at least some drug laws since 2009, according to a recent Pew Research Center analysis. According to the Marijuana Policy Project, proposals to treat pot like alcohol have been introduced in 18 states and the District of Columbia this year alone. Meanwhile, 16 states have already decriminalized marijuana, according to the pro-pot group NORML—Maryland will become the 17th in October. In large swaths of the country getting caught with a small amount of weed at a concert is now roughly the same as getting a speeding ticket on the way to the show. While not leading the charge, the Obama administration is allowing states the chance to experiment.

    The feds have given a qualified greenlight to Colorado and Washington to dabble in recreational weed, and have even taken small steps to encourage banks to do business with those companies involved in the quasi-legal pot trade.


    ...

    http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/06/marijuana_legalization_will_weed_soon_be_legal_eve rywhere_in_the_united.html

    Will BigAlcohol, the PIC, BigPolice, BigPuritan/Baptist keep the War on Drugs going?



  18. #18
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    Limiting DEA’s Reach: House Votes on Bills Allowing States to Grow Hemp W/O Interference

    After Kentucky’s recent dance with the DEA over confiscated hemp seeds, it is clear that an amendment is needed to keep the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from interfering in industrial hemp cultivation.

    Recently, the U.S. House voted on two amendments that would prohibit the DEA from over-stepping their boundaries when it comes to cultivation – a right states were already granted in the recent Farm Bill changes.


    States have already been granted hemp cultivation rights, and shouldn’t have to worry about the DEA militants taking their seed from them, to be held for unknown periods, and interfering with planting seasons and the important timing for starting hemp seedlings.


    Twelve states—California, Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and West Virginia—currently have laws to provide for hemp production as described by the Farm Bill stipulations. As long as the hemp grown has low levels of THC – the chemical compound of cannabis that is responsible for the ‘high’ – the DEA has no reason to interfere.



    One amendment would prohibit the Department of Justice, including its DEA arm, from importing hemp seeds and conducting research on the crop. The amendment is to the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, which controls the DEA’s budget, and was offered by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.).

    Amendment number two (HR 4660), presented by Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) keeps the DEA from spending federal funds to prevent states from growing hemp, implementing its own laws to govern its cultivation, distribution, possession, and use.


    http://naturalsociety.com/limiting-d...-interference/




  19. #19
    Cleveland Rocks CavsSuperFan's Avatar
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    Lawmakers in Jamaica are now considering a bill that would legalize marijuana...In related news, lawmakers in Italy are considering a bill to legalize spaghetti, and lawmakers in Ireland are considering a bill to legalize whiskey...

  20. #20
    Veteran Wild Cobra's Avatar
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    Lawmakers in Jamaica are now considering a bill that would legalize marijuana...In related news, lawmakers in Italy are considering a bill to legalize spaghetti, and lawmakers in Ireland are considering a bill to legalize whiskey...
    Who would ever be against "water of life" except for the USA?

  21. #21

  22. #22
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    The Supreme Judicial Court Wednesday said that because voters decriminalized small amounts of marijuana in 2008, police officers in Massachusetts can no longer rely on the odor of unburnt marijuana to justify searching a person’s car.

    In two unanimous rulings, the state’s highest court said they had already decided in 2011 that the odor of smoked marijuana by itself did not provide police with probable cause to stop people on the street or search the vehicles people are riding in.
    http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/201...bvO/story.html

  23. #23
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    The U.S. House of Representatives approved an amendment Wednesday afternoon that will make it easier for legitimate marijuana businesses operating in states where the drug has been legalized to obtain financial services.

    The House passed the Heck-Perlmutter-Lee-Rohrabacher amendment -- or “Heck amendment” -- to the H.R. 5016 spending bill by a vote of 231-192. The amendment blocks the Securities and Exchange Commission and Treasury Department from spending money to penalize banks and other financial ins utions for working with pot businesses that do not break state law.
    http://www.ibtimes.com/pro-marijuana...-house-1630408

  24. #24
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    In the first five months of legal retail sales, Colorado dispensaries sold about $90 million worth of recreational marijuana, The Denver Post reported Thursday.
    Yet it was still outsold by its medical counterpart, which has been legal in the state since 2000. Medical marijuana brought in about $165 million in revenue during the same January-through-May period.

    According to a May report from the Colorado Department of Revenue, the state earned about $35 million in taxes, licensing and other fees from both recreational and medical marijuana sales in the first 11 months of the past fiscal year (which ran from July 1, 2013, to June 30, 2014).

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5574650.html

    Repugs and tea baggers will block mj legislation because it "increases tax revenue"



  25. #25
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    Repugs just passed the Heck amendment in the US House.

    so much for the monolithic, lockstep VRWC.

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