U.S. drug czar talks tough on marijuana.

[Blue_In_AK]

http://www.adn.com/2013/04/24/2877864/drug-czar-gil-kerlikowske-talks.html

WASHINGTON — As Washington state and Colorado wait to see whether the federal government will allow them to sell marijuana legally, the Obama administration is busy talking about the dangerous health effects of smoking pot.

When he went to Baltimore on Wednesday to announce the administration’s latest drug-fighting plan, drug czar Gil Kerlikowske said legalization was an “extreme” approach.

In a speech last week in Washington, D.C., Kerlikowske said the best government policy was one that discouraged the use of marijuana and made it less available. Moreover, he said, the Justice Department is obligated to enforce the federal Controlled Substances Act, which bans marijuana.

“No state, no executive, can nullify a statute that’s been passed by Congress,” said Kerlikowske, the former police chief of Seattle, making a clear reference to the two states that in November approved the recreational use of marijuana by people 21 and older.

<snip>

Kerlikowske said that both legalization and an enforcement-only war-on-drugs approach were extreme solutions and the administration wanted to do more in the middle, preventing drug use and spending more on treatment for addiction. As a police chief, Kerlikowske said, he’d often failed to understand that addiction was a disease that could be treated, but his views have changed.

One thing has remained consistent: his view that marijuana shouldn’t be legalized.

In 2009, Obama’s first year in office, the drug czar called legalization “a non-starter” for the president’s team.

<snip>

This is really idiotic. Far more damage is caused by the war on drugs than is caused by the drugs themselves. The private prison and drug lobbies must have a phenomenal amount of power.

[Loudly]

1. Talk tough on guns and ammo.

Hands off the weed genius.

[Betsy Ross]

2. Don't smoke!

Vaporize!

[think]

7. Exactly what he should have included in his remarks....

But that would be providing useful information that could help uninformed users make a better health decision before making a move towards completely quitting. And we can't have that now can we......

[Go Vols]

3. Fuck this shit,

and the czar, and anyone that agrees with him.

[RainDog]

4. Congress has legislation in the works to change the law

No matter what Kerlikowske thinks, or what the Obama administration thinks, the majority of the American public disagrees with their positions on marijuana and wants the law to change.

It is going to change - it has already. And it is going to change more.

Kerlikowske has said some pretty stupid things about cannabis in the past. He claimed there was no medical value from smoking something. Contrary to conventional wisdom, however, those who have done research on this issue in regard to cannabis indicate it does not have the same effect on lung function that tobacco products do.

The Drug Policy forum here has a lot of findings from research posted there.

But smoking does not have to be the way someone uses cannabis, so even that argument is specious.

Current law is shameful and should be an embarrassment to this nation. It's a form of slavery when minorities are targeted while the privileged are not subject to the same repercussions (something Obama should understand very well from his own life experience.) That sort of hypocrisy happens all the time with politicians. I expected better from Obama.

[Go Vols]

5. " I expected better from Obama."

me too.

[RainDog]

6. This thread talks about this same issue

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2749424

interesting to see the spin.

[Blue_In_AK]

8. That IS interesting.

So what's the true opinion here? Somewhere in between?

[RainDog]

9. I think it's movement in the right direction

Last edited Thu Apr 25, 2013, 04:36 PM - Edit history (1)

as in, away from the idea that for-profit prisons and their guarantee of quotas are good for this nation...this is something that Republicans are still touting. GEO has made big contributions to various pols' campaigns. In Indiana, the gov. demanded stricter, rather than less draconian attitudes toward marijuana, for instance. Florida has gone the same path, with GEO. They've got legislation in the works to make bongs illegal to sell.

But the Obama administration, like the Clinton administration, hasn't been willing to spend any political capital on this issue. The momentum is coming from the western states reps in Congress with the two bills regarding marijuana, and also the Republican bill to remove hemp from the CSA for states like KY and ND.

I think that's why it's very important for people to let their representatives know if they want changes made in this law.

Since cannabis is as addictive as caffeine (and stopping it has the same level of difficulty), what has happened in the shift to an addiction model is that cannabis has been wrongly included. It's a way to make money, I guess, a tax if you're connected and wealthy enough to go that route, or prison if you're too poor. But the administration doesn't seem to want to admit that marijuana is no more dangerous and is less addictive than alcohol, because that would undermine all their arguments about why it should remain illegal.

Patrick Kennedy and David Frum are on this same train of thought. It's not progressive at all.

It keeps the alcohol industry protected from competition. (Did you see that great thread about Jimmy Carter and home brewing?)

It also keeps pumping money into the war on drugs, which gives Gil job protection. What's that saying about believing something when your job makes it necessary to do so?

Who knows. The beltway is a pretty regressive place, if you ask me. Definitely that idea of two levels of justice.. one for the connected, one for the rest of society (c.f. Holder letting banks get away with laundering money for cartels... I mean, it has just gotten ridiculous.)

I don't think Gil is saying anything new.

Polis, on the other hand, is doing some interesting work.

[Blue_In_AK]

10. You know, Alaska has had virtually legal marijuana for decades.

Our state constitution has a very robust privacy clause which made possible the Ravin v. State decision in 1975. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravin_v._State Basically, anything under an ounce (or four ounces by some interpretations) in one's home for personal use is okay. 25 plants? Okay. The police up here don't even bother with possession of marijuana cases unless someone has a major grow operation going on. Nobody ever made much of a big deal about it apparently, because the feds seem to leave us alone. We also have legal medical marijuana, but why register when you can have it for recreational use anyway?

NORML lays out our laws this way: http://norml.org/laws/penalties/item/alaska-penalties

You can see there are some gray areas and some contradictions there, but since law enforcement seems to look the other way pretty much, we just ignore the law altogether.

[RedCappedBandit]

11. The fact that he jumps to the whole 'addiction' thing when simply discussing recreational pot..

just shows how out of touch and useless this guy is.

[Blue_In_AK]

12. That's what stood out to me, too.

I'll admit to liking my marijuana, but I think I'm less addicted to it than I am to caffeine. When I don't get a couple cups of coffee in me in the morning, I get a headache, feel cloudy-headed, but if I don't smoke for a while, I suffer no internal discomfort or agitation. When we go on vacations, flying out of AK, no pot, I don't even think about it.

[SpartanDem]

13. It's actually illgeal for drug czar advocate legalization

I can think of any other office where having a certain opinion is outright illegal. People talk about changing the Controlled Substance Act, but this is another law in need of changing.

[Floyd_Gondolli]

14. Good luck with that, Gil

We have two states that have fully legalized it. We have public opinion growing each year for legalization. It's more available than it has ever been in more places, both legally and illegally. If you think you're going to halt all that with some tough talk and a few hundred arrests you're going to have a bad day.