Thread: The Latest "War on Drugs" Rulings

Isn't the court's mission to determine if the law is indeed lawful or not?

The appropriate vehicle for changing this law is Congress. Of course the courts will not find in her favor. They are supposed to determine the Constitutionality of the law.

^ This Appellate court ruling is setting the stage for the USSC.


Although because of it's history on this topic, I am doubtful.


Bottom line is that it's still bullsh*t.

It is, but, the proper venue for change is the Congress since the law in question was apparently passed Constitutionally as a legitimate exercise of power by the Congress.

If the Supremes take action the proper course of decision will be to find the law Constitutional and to find her potentially liable for prosecution.

Sad, but, that's the way it is supposed to work.

That's odd, I thought that the law in California allowed marijuana to be used for medical purposes in certain cases. That's the understanding in the UK, so perhaps it's not as clear cut as that.

Originally Posted by Wallace

That's odd, I thought that the law in California allowed marijuana to be used for medical purposes in certain cases. That's the understanding in the UK, so perhaps it's not as clear cut as that.

California does legally allow this.

But the Federal government has made it against the law.

That's why a state regulated man who was supplying the sick with marijuana was charged and convicted un federal law.

Total bullsh*t.

Mandatory minimums and a failed legal system. Not just about Ganja, but about pain medicine for the chronically pained.

Updated: 8:59 p.m. PT Sept 20, 2007


DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - A disabled former attorney who said he needed large amounts of drugs to numb his pain was released from prison Thursday after the governor and the rest of the state clemency board pardoned his drug trafficking charges.

....“He’s a brave man, and it takes a great leader to show a small person mercy,” Paey said of Crist.



Paey was sentenced to 25 years in prison after prosecutors argued that he had forged so many prescriptions and purchased so many pain pills he must have been selling them, despite no additional evidence. The case gained national attention as an example of outrageous mandatory minimum drug sentences.

Paey and his supporters have argued that he never distributed any drugs — that he purchased and consumed huge amounts on his own for constant pain. Paey has been debilitated by a 1985 car accident suffers from multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair.


He refused to accept a plea because he didn’t want to be branded a drug dealer.


The case illustrates flaws in the law and how people who are dependent on strong pain medication can get tangled up in the government’s effort to combat drugs, Paey’s attorney, John Flannery of Leesburg, Va., said. Because of mandatory minimum sentences, the judge in Paey’s case had no choice but the 25-year sentence after he was conviction.

Link: Man freed after drug charge nixed - Crime & Punishment - MSNBC.com

There are a couple of Marijuana thread in US Domestic, but they pertain to "medical Marijuana." I'll try this article, here.

With decades of criminalization of US domestic pot growing, Mexican pot has become a big - and violent business. Much of this violence has spilled over the border in US territory.

Here's an article on the effect of US home-grown pot.

I can smell (no pun) which way the wind is blowing.

1. more tax revenue from domestic pot

2. less reliance on Mexican (drug-gang-war) pot coming from Mexico.

3. Medical Marijuana, issue.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/...n5368594.shtml

Washington Post: American Mom-and-Pop Marijuana Growers Are Cutting Into Profits of Foreign Traffickers

Stiff competition from thousands of mom-and-pop marijuana farmers in the United States threatens the bottom line for powerful Mexican drug organizations in a way that decades of arrests and seizures have not, according to law enforcement officials and pot growers in the United States and Mexico.

Illicit pot production in the United States has been increasing steadily for decades. But recent changes in state laws that allow the use and cultivation of marijuana for medical purposes are giving U.S. growers a competitive advantage, challenging the traditional dominance of the Mexican traffickers, who once made brands such as Acapulco Gold the standard for quality.

Special Report: Marijuana Nation

Almost all of the marijuana consumed in the multibillion-dollar U.S. market once came from Mexico or Colombia. Now as much as half is produced domestically, often by small-scale operators who painstakingly tend greenhouses and indoor gardens to produce the more potent, and expensive, product that consumers now demand, according to authorities and marijuana dealers on both sides of the border.

The shifting economics of the marijuana trade have broad implications for Mexico's war against the drug cartels, suggesting that market forces, as much as law enforcement, can extract a heavy price from criminal organizations that have used the spectacular profits generated by pot sales to fuel the violence and corruption that plague the Mexican state.

While the trafficking of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine is the main focus of U.S. law enforcement, it is marijuana that has long provided most of the revenue for Mexican drug cartels. More than 60 percent of the cartels' revenue -- $8.6 billion out of $13.8 billion in 2006 -- came from U.S. marijuana sales, according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Now, to stay competitive, Mexican traffickers are changing their business model to improve their product and streamline delivery. Well-organized Mexican cartels have also moved to increasingly cultivate marijuana on public lands in the United States, according to the National Drug Intelligence Center and local authorities. This strategy gives the Mexicans direct access to U.S. markets, avoids the risk of seizure at the border and reduces transportation costs.

Unlike cocaine, which the traffickers must buy and transport from South America, driving up costs, marijuana has been especially lucrative for the cartels because they control the business all the way from clandestine fields in the Mexican mountains to the wholesale dealers in U.S. cities such as Washington.

"It's pure profit," said Jorge Chabat, an expert on the drug trade at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics in Mexico City.

The exact dimensions of the U.S. marijuana market are unknown. The 2007 National Survey on Drug Use and Health estimated that 14.4 million Americans age 12 and over had used marijuana in the past month. More than 10 percent of the U.S. population reported smoking pot once in the past year.

Mexico produced 35 million pounds of marijuana last year, according to government estimates. On a hidden hilltop field in Mexico's Sinaloa state, reachable by donkey, a pound of pot might earn a farmer $25. The wholesale price for the same pound in Phoenix is $550, and so the Mexican cartels could be selling $20 billion worth of marijuana in the U.S. market each year.

"Marijuana created the drug trafficking organizations you see today. The founding families of the cartels got their start with pot. And marijuana remains a highly profitable business they will fight to protect," said Luis Astorga, a leading authority on the drug cartels at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, who grew up in Sinaloa in 1960s and recalls seeing major growers at social functions in the state capital, Culiacan.

Led by California, 13 U.S. states now permit some use of marijuana; Maryland is considering such a law. In many cities, marijuana is one of the lowest priorities for police.

To some authorities, the new laws are essentially licenses to grow money. With a $100 investment in enriched soil and nutrients, almost anyone can cultivate a plant that will produce two pounds of marijuana that can sell for $9,000 in hundreds of medical marijuana clubs or on the street, according to growers.

High-end marijuana grown under such special conditions often fetches 10 times the price of poor-quality Mexican pot grown in abandoned cornfields and stored for months in damp conditions that erode its quality further.

Link Above.

Well, the case should be judged and decided by the court of laws.

The entire DEA should be closed down permanently.

A new branch of government is needed; the ARAA (Addict Recovery Assistance Administration) to facilitate individual state efforts for helping drug addicts. Working closely with AA and NA.

Well done Blackfart. You have exhumed a 9 year old thread from one of your multinics, and given Earl another soap box for his drug abuse campaign.

Members are encouraged to participate in a robust, positive, and meaningful manner.

Those who wish to derail, troll, or introduce negative vibes are encouraged to post in the Dog House --> It's down the hall, 4th door on the left.


--Admin

Robustly, you are an idiot.

Originally Posted by Davis Knowlton

Robustly, you are an idiot.

You are free to have your opinion.

I however, feel differently.


Good day, sir.