Write Away Marijuana?

An article I read at the Telegraph UK this morning gets my blog's attention.

The article: General McChrystal: the fall guy for the president's failure?

By Con Coughlin

The article goes in to details of why Obama was wrong to fire McChrystal and defends the Generals right to speak privately.
LINK

Sorry Con, but you can not just write away the use of marijuana by the General.

What the article does not mention is, General McChystal and his aides were engaged in smoking marijuana. The use of marijuana is against the Army regulations and is illegal in both the US and Afghanistan. Why would a writer attempt to find wrong with Obama's firing this Pot Head from one of our Nations most critical Military positions?

It would seem to me that this was another attempt to slander the President that the American People and Electoral College placed in office. Why would Mr. Coughlin do that? Rupert Murdoch owns the Telegraph UK and FOX News among other News sources and he has been pimping Sara Palin as one of the next United States Presidential Candidates. IMHO: Her only qualification for the position is she is undoubtedly a chronic liar and does so at every opportunity. There might be one other qualification, that is if greed is a qualification!

Marijuana is good enough for the Gubinator, our current President and Top Army Generals to smoke, so why can't we smoke it too? Well you can, but you could end up jailed. For doing the very same thing our leaders have done, or that they are doing!

It is not about the dangers of the drug, but rather the profits that are being made by the status quo of marijuana law. Many large companies make profit from suffering cancer patients, such as the pharmaceutical companies and health care industry. Some of the other industries and organizations that profit are, the prison industry, the cotton industry and the law enforcement industry. To legalize marijuana would really upset the billions of dollars in profit that are made from these industries and those that support law enforcement organizations.


Taxation not Prohibition!

Cops Love Marijuana Busts But Hate Meth Busts

Years ago I watched a program where a law enforcement officer explained that Meth Busts were not profitable to the department. Where as with marijuana grows they usually got cash, homes, cars, guns, and many other expensive toys. Today I sat looking at my Google search results, News last twenty four hours Marijuana 24,086 hits! Somewhere that officer talking about the profit difference came to mind. So I did a Google search News last twenty four hours Meth 66 hits, what is wrong with this picture?

It shows that police are backing away from meth busts because their departments are less likely to make a profit. Meth is known to cause violence and is considered one of the most destructive drugs on the streets. Marijuana is a non toxic herb that should never have been outlawed, and its use does not cause users to be violent.

We see our law enforcement has become addicted to marijuana busts as a form of easy money. While they avoid Meth as there is little or no profit in arresting the violent users or cooks of the Meth trade. Arresting people for possesing or growing medicinal herbs seems to be our law enforcements main obsession these days.

Next I searched Google News and in the last twenty four hours a whopping total for crime 142,513 hits. Could I have been wrong in my assertion that police are more concerned about the profit, making herb busts their main occupation? I decided to add -marijuana to the crime search criteria, the results dropped to 36,859 hits. I know this is not the most reliable polling method ever used, but I also feel the results show law enforcement has a huge problem with their priorities. I feel our lawmakers have stacked the deck with funding and writing law that makes marijuana busts the priority of law enforcement officers across the country!

Taxation not Prohibition!

Prohibition and Our Tax Dollars

I keep saying the war on marijuana users is an incredible waste of the taxpayers money. Once again lots of hard police work pays off;


Officers of the Woodbury Police Department and the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Guns, Gangs and Narcotics Task Force executed a court-authorized search warrant, capping a two-month investigation.

Two marijuana plants were seized and two people arrested following the execution of a search warrant Friday at a West Street residence
Link

Yes you read that right, two months investigation brings in two marijuana plants. It is bad enough that a police department wasted two months on this investigation, but now there will be court cost and possibly the cost of imprisonment. Two months police work court cost etc, your looking in to tens of thousands of dollars, for two marijuana plants! Yes the taxpayers are expected to see this eradication of a medicinal herb as the saving our society. Saving it from what you ask? Why to save us from more people using marijuana of course, it could take billions out of the cooperate elite's profits if marijuana is legalized!

At this time we need to watch our politicians carefully and rid ourselves of the ones that are looking out for the corporations profits instead of the good of the people.

Taxation not Prohibition!

Marijuana Prosecution Has Always Been Biased in US

United States Army Four Star General Smoking Stanley McChrystal


Today I read several stories on President Obama's decision to replace Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Some of the writers were against the Presidents decision as the General had not disobeyed but rather expressed trivial opinions. While others said that a military man should have shown more restraint when talking with reporters.

Out of six headline stories not one mentioned that the General and his aides had been smoking Marijuana. One thing that stuck out in all the stories that do state, that the Army Officers were smoking marijuana, is no one ever mentions having the Officers being tested for Drug use. Opiates should have been tested for immediately after learning these Army Officers were using marijuana, Afghanistan is the worlds leading supplier of Opium and it's use known to be a major problem among the troops there.

A US General with a Top Secret security clearance can smoke marijuana for recreational use and most writers take no notice of wrong doing. The press is more concerned about the political reasoning of relieving McChrystal of command in Afghanistan, than the fact the top commander was using a dangerous drug.

All of the Officers involved should be required to enroll in ASAP Army Substance Abuse Program as they would require any other Army personnel. We have a president that admits smoking Marijuana, the Governor from the state with the most electoral votes has his Doobie smoking picture floating around the internet. We now have two New York Gubernatorial candidates that are admitting they have smoked Marijuana. According to our current law all marijuana smokers are drug users and as such they are criminals.

It is time to change the law!


It is time for,

Taxation not Prohibition!

Police Chief Wants MMJ Patient to Stand Trial

Law enforcement and the King County Prosecuting Attorney want to press charges against a medical marijuana patient caught with ten ounces. Now this is where things get strange, two Superior Court Judge's have ruled on the case and ordered the police dept. to return the mans marijuana. Now the police have resubmitted the case for a third time to the Prosecuting Attorney, WTF?

Prosecutors had initially declined to press charges in the case, and a King County Superior Court judge ordered the Snoqualmie Police Department to give the man the marijuana seized when he was arrested in 2009.

Police contested the order, which the judge, Sharon Armstrong, upheld at a June 16 hearing.

“Our knowledge of the investigation is that the medical marijuana process really doesn’t apply,” Snoqualmie Police Chief Jim Schaffer said before the hearing.

Schaffer said he did not know of any police department that has returned marijuana in similar circumstances.

Snoqualmie police resubmitted the charges to the prosecutor’s office again after the June 16 hearing, according to Becky Munson, the department’s spokeswoman.

Another kink arose in the case June 19 when the prosecution’s primary witness died of natural causes.

LINK

There is really something seriously wrong when police will not follow a Judges order. This gets even more incredible as a second judge upheld the decision and yet
Snoqualmie Police Chief Jim Schaffer is fighting to sentence the MMJ patient!

Now we see a Police Chief who thinks he knows law better than two judges. This should not surprise me as I am constantly reading of law enforcement officers who diagnose patients and know what drugs Dr's should or should not prescribe them. Now we have law enforcement that defies the Superior Court.

Time to put our public servants on notice and reaffirm their role as servants not rulers in our society!

Taxation not Prohibition

Medical Marijuana Debunking Law Enforcements FUD

Dr. Phillip Leveque has a great story up at Salem News, where he debunks the FUD that is being spread by Tom Bergin, the Sheriff from Clatsop County Oregon. The Sheriff is a sponsor of Initiative 32 (I-32) which will block all current Medical Marijuana laws and have medical marijuana patients using Marinol or aspirin in its stead. When you have read the article I'm sure you will be angered by the County Sheriff blatantly lying to the public so he could terrorize patients who choose to use medical Medical Marijuana.

A really interesting fact is our Government is growing medical marijuana for $20 a ounce, not $320 to $500 a ounce that is being charged to patients in the current Medical Marijuana scheme.

Dr Phil,
The U.S. Government, which grows it, says Medical Marijuana can be grown for $20 an ounce which makes about 50 MJ cigarettes, maybe more.

Sheriff Bergin,
Marijuana contains about 460 CARCINOGENS.

Dr Phil,
This is totally false and a real surprise. The U.S. Government owns a patent for the use of Cannabis/Marijuana to treat cancer and pure Cannabis chemical, THC, is used to treat cancer patients.

Sheriff Bergin,
Sponsered I-32 which would block all current Medical Marijuana laws and make a new one in which tax payers would pay for or subsidize Marinol costs at about $15 each for “legitimate Medical Marijuana patients” some of whom take 4 a day.

Dr Phil,
We have 35,000 MMJ patients in Oregon and soon will have 40,000 and going up. Marinol costs would be astronomical.
LINK

Well worth the read, it shows how much lies and FUD a law enforcement officer is willing to spread because he is addicted to busting Marijuana users.

America Must Wean Law Enforcement From Their Marijuana Arrest Addiction

Taxation not Prohibition!

Police Waste Time & Money on Prohibition

Sacramento Sheriff McGinness says Marijuana is a herb, one of the best known US Army Generals Stanley McChrystal was caught smoking marijuana. Yet law enforcement continues its war on marijuana and marijuana consumers at a breakneck pace. In California it would seem that with the voters having twice voted for medical use of marijuana. That law enforcement might get the picture. But no, they continue their war on marijuana, business as usual.

One of the things that amazes me is, marijuana growers must be super athletes. They walk into their marijuana patches, that law enforcement need to be flown in and out of. Recently some brave officers tried to hike into a remote marijuana grow. The hike ended badly with two officers flown out by helicopter, one had serious injuries the other escaped with no major injury.


A deputy was injured as he fell off a cliff, pulling another deputy with him during a marijuana grow raid.

The deputy began sliding down the boulder. A second deputy sheriff, Reed Lovan, attempted to rescue him by grabbing the falling deputy’s backpack, according to the Kern County Sheriff's Department. The momentum of the falling deputy pulled both deputies downward, off of the 30 foot cliff, the KCSD reported. Lovan sustained a broken ankle and leg and a shoulder injury as a result of the fall.Sheriff's helicopter, Air Five, extracted Lovan from the ravine where he had fallen.
LINK


So now we have a officer that will be out of action for a while as he heals, among the other expenditures to pull up the remote herb bed. The cost of the prohibition of marijuana is skyrocketing and for what reason or cause? I think the answer is as easy as following the money. Our government has been spending billions of dollars protecting the all important profits of certain industries, at the dire expense of the American people.

These industries include cotton (Monsanto), health care, pharmaceutical, law enforcement, drug rehabs, and the prison industry all would lose a large amount of profit if marijuana is legalized.

The truly sad part is, as we push for fair policies on marijuana. The corpse (cooperates) are already lobbying and passing laws that will allow them to jail people for internet piracy. More non violent criminals imprisoned to fill the pockets of the rich, all at the peoples expense. It will cost us not only tax monies, but it will further the suffering of our families that are broken apart for the profits of the elite's. We need to get the corpse out of our political offices, or we will never again know any freedom!

Taxation not Prohibition!

During Debate Sheriff says Marijuana is a Herb!

There is a long standing argument over whether marijuana is a drug or a herb. Today Sheriff McGinness of Sacramento stated, while debating Judge Gray, that marijuana is a herb!

McGinness said he thinks people will avoid taxes by growing more at home."An herb that's relatively easy to grow -- people who are going to make regular purchase of it are going to find a way to do so without paying taxes. I just believe that to be the case," McGinness said.
LINK

Mr McGinness you accidentally let the truth slip out, you and the rest of America's law enforcement have been busting your fellow citizens for possessing and growing herbs! If that was not bad enough now you ask Californians to keep the prohibition so you will not lose your favorite past time, busting weed growers for fun and profit!

So there you have it in the words of the Sacramento Sherriff McGinniss Marijuana is not a drug, but a herb!

Taxation not Prohibition!

Judge Gray Debates Sheriff McGinness Topic Weed

When it came to facts Judge Gray was really terrorizing Sheriff McGinness over the effects legalization of marijuana would have on California. Where Judge Gray cites his facts the Sheriff resorts to opinions and speculation of his own rather than any type of researched data. Once again the MSM is spreading FUD, in the form of the non-facts from law enforcement about marijuana.


The two law enforcement figures offered competing views today in a Sacramento debate over the November initiative to legalize marijuana beyond current medical use, allow small residential cultivation and permit local governments to tax and regulate pot sales.

While the retired judge cited a state Board of Equalization estimate that legal pot sales could generate $1.3 billion in total tax revenues in California, McGinness argued that the initiative is flawed and may actually create new black market for untaxed marijuana.

"I think the revenue to be gained is likely negligible," the McGinness said.

LINK

A ridiculous statement Mr Sheriff, why would anybody go to the trouble to find black market marijuana to purchase when they could buy quality weighed marijuana at a local store or Weedmart. That would be like fearing a black market of home brewed beer would ruin the ability to tax legal beer. Another example would be tobacco and its taxes, the state profits more than it loses to the black market, and so it would be with marijuana and its Taxation!

Mr Sheriff you were debating a bad position and replying to cited facts with improvisation and personal opinion is not a proper way to debate an argument. Judge Gray was the lawn mower and your ass the grass.

To me the best part of legalization is I would no longer hear of law enforcemets kicking in doors, intimidating at gun point, aresting, shooting people and or their pets over a safe herb that man has used medicinally and recreationally for over 4,000 years.

Taxation not Prohibition!

Biggest Drug Bust = The Herb Marijuana

I could not resist the phrase the Biggest Bust, and posted the appropriate picture.

This bust would be insignificant if not for this claim, North Little Rock police described it as one of the biggest drug busts in the city’s history. This struck a raw nerve as I feel that Americans need to be taught that marijuana is not a drug and was never a drug. Marijuana is a plant that best fits into the category of a Herb or more specifically a medicinal herb. Marijuana contains a small percentage of the psychoactive compound THC. A drug would be extracted THC or synthesized THC like Marinol 100% THC, and Marinol is a legal prescription drug.

Now lets examine the rest of the article;

North Little Rock narcotics officers and sheriff’s deputies from Pulaski and Saline counties took part in the raid which began as a two-month undercover investigation in North Little Rock.

We see that this big Herb bust cost taxpayers for not only 2 months of police work, but also had Sheriff's and or Deputies from two counties at the scene. This is not only costing taxpayers money but depriving them of law enforcement time to work other more serious cases.

“As you can see, this is a significant bust, and it will make a difference in Pulaski County just by getting this much dope off the street,” North Little Rock Police Chief Danny Bradley said today.

Will this really change anything in Pulaski county, my bet would be no. I say this because the networks for dealing are still in place and the buyers still have a want to to use marijuana. One unexpected results of cutting the supply of marijuana is it pushes people towards buying other street drugs dealers may be selling.

North Little Rock police spokesman Sgt. Terry Kuykendall, a former narcotics investigator, said the largest prior marijuana bust he could remember was about 300 pounds seized in 2000.

Busting 300 lbs did not stop people from pedaling pot in Pulaski county as seen from Sgt. Kuykendall statement.


The Brag List:
Officers seized 615 pounds of marijuana, $23,000 in cash and six guns in a raid Sunday afternoon at a southern Pulaski County business.

So they got 615 pounds of a Herb that should never have been outlawed, six guns and $23,000 dollars. How many guns did the officers bring to the arrest? How many officers were present to make one arrest? How many man hrs went into the two month long investigation? How much will the prosecution and court costs be? How much will the prison time cost? What will the total overall cost be for the biggest drug bust in BF Egypt really be when Mr. Green is a free man once again?

Bradley estimated the marijuana had a wholesale value of about $2 million, but states that he hasn’t calculated what the street value of that would be.
LINK

In my humble opinion, we will all be much better off when marijuana is Taxed and Regulated as any other business. We are all paying a dear price for this preponderous game of keeping the holy profits of health care and the pharmaceuticals companies protected from competition of medicinal herbs.

Update:
The seizure came after a two-month joint investigation with the Saline County Sheriff's Office. Kuykendall said North Little Rock narcotics investigators are deputized to work throughout Pulaski County, which is why they were able to conduct the raid outside of city limits.
LINK

It might have been even more costly than I first suspected.

Taxation not Prohibition!