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When Barack Obama ran for president he promised to respect the states’ medical marijuana laws. But since taking office Obama has been steadily using more and more parts of the federal government to wage a war on medical marijuana.
His Administration’s actions as of late have become so aggressively anti-medical marijuana that the Drug Policy Alliance has recently labeled Obama as worse than George W. Bush ever was towards medical marijuana.
Under the Obama Administration at least a half dozen federal agencies are being deployed to harass patients, hamper dispensaries, prevent research and in general cripple medical marijuana in this country.
- Internal Revenue Service – Last week the IRS ruled that an obscure tax provision from the 80′s means the California medical marijuana dispensary, Harborside Health Center, can’t claim the standard business deductions available to any normal company. Not being able to claim standard business deductions, such as payroll, rent and insurance, would make it practically impossible for dispensaries to function. If the ruling stands and applied broadly it would cripple the medical marijuana industry.
- Department of Justice – Obama’s Department of Justice has been involved in so many efforts large and small to hamper medical marijuana, I will not list them all here. Two of these seem most important. Earlier this year several US Attorneys sent letters to governors of states that were in the process of adopting medical marijuana measures. The letters threatened to prosecute not just individuals who would run dispensaries but even state employees providing the licenses for dispensaries. As a result of these DOJ threats, Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire vetoed a dispensary bill, and the state of Rhode Island decided not to move forward with its plan to establish three dispensaries. These moves cost many sick Americans access to safe and legal medical marijuana. More importantly, in the newest act of escalation from the Obama Administration four US Attorneys in California last week held a press conference threatening criminal actions against many of the states’ dispensaries.
- Drug Enforcement Administration – Despite the 2009 Ogden memo, DEA raids on medical marijuana dispensaries and growers that appear to have compiled with state law have continued.
- Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives – Just last month the ATF declared that medical marijuana patients in states where the use of medical marijuana has been legalized can’t purchase firearms or ammunition. The ATF considers these state-sanctioned medical marijuana patients to be “addicts” and/or “unlawful drug users” and therefore are prohibited from owning a firearm under federal law. The ATF is now forcing individuals to choose between the medicine they depend on and their second amendment rights.
- Department of Health and Human Services – In April the FDA approved a study to be done by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies into the potentially beneficial effects of marijuana in helping reduce the symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. Post traumatic stress disorder is a serious and growing problem among American service members due to our decade long war in Afghanistan. Despite getting FDA approval, a few weeks ago HHS refused to provide the researchers with federally grown marijuana necessary to carry out the study. The bizarre conflicting justification for the HHS rejection gives the clear impression that the HHS is actively trying to block any research in the potential of marijuana to treat PTSD. Proof that medical marijuana can be beneficial to these suffering veterans could prompt more states to allow for it.
These simply can’t all be isolated incidents at different federal agencies. This is a government wide assault on medical marijuana laws that were approved by the voters in a dozen states. The evidence is clear that the Obama Administration is engaged in a multi-front attack on medical marijuana. That assault has significantly picked up steam in the past few months.
33 Comments
And yet Obama thinks he can claim to support the #OWS protesters.
I never cared for Bill Clinton’s DLC politics, but the current occupant of the White House makes Clinton look like a Dennis Kucinich.
Obama has a future, but denies it to 99%
He really is a tool.
Obama has a future alright, as a failed one term President.
Silly rabbit, weed smokin’ is only for when you’re lounging in a chair and wearing a Panama hat.
Speaking of which, I should really sit down and put on my new hat.
ding!
methinks this move on MM is a cynical ploy to appeal to conservative independents.
Wow, what’s with all this movement and gettin’ things done? /s
I’m starting to think obama is mentally unstable.
Could this have been part of his back-room deal with Big Pharma?
What irks me is that I voted for Obama because Hillary Clinton had clearly identified herself as part of the authoritarian wing of the Democratic Party. Remember the brouhaha about violent entertainment after the Columbine shootings? She, Al Gore, Evan Bayh, and Joe Lieberman were the leaders of the “let’s pander to soccer moms” faction. The torch of leadership has been passed to Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Obama actions are protecting the drug cartels’ revenue and the prison industry.
This post makes me want to get drunk.
Strange-Bedfellow Time: NORML needs to recruit the NRA.
One thing I still don’t understand…. Congress does not have any authority over matters that happen solely within the borders of a given state. That is why the prohibition of alcohol required a constitutional amendment: it was the only way the federal government to reach into a state and ban the manufacture and sale of alcohol.
What gives the federal government authority to reach into a state and ban the growth and sale of marijuana? Was a constitutional amendment ratified that I am unaware of?
Dictators don’t need laws they are the “Deciders”. Power corrupts and the three branches of govrenment are functioning as one since the executive has coopted the power of the Congress and the Supremes lie all of this.
Where do you get he has a future?
This action of his is really odd. However, in a certain way it coordinates with the position he’s taken on the immigration state laws. Maybe he feels he couldn’t fight the contradictions in those laws with federal law and not do the same with MM.
We need some investigative reporting to establish evidence as to what backroom deal this is serving.
So this is why they’re not investigating any war crimes or bank$ters — too busy!/S
No but a supreme court ruling regarding medical marijuana effectively declared the commerce clause had no limit.
Fuquewad Obama now has a friend.
Fuquewad Brown just vetoed the Industrial Hemp bill that’s been sitting on his desk for months. But why now? Why strongarm the medical cann’s now w/ the 4 Horsemen. Was it because of the Hemp Bill — was it coercion? Or was it concertive? Is it a diversion from Fast and Furious? or Quick, there’s some raw milk over there. Freeze!
This is what utter betrayal looks like.
And Jerry also gave the green light to the horrors of Gardasil without mommy and daddy’s permission. So he hates girls now, too?? Just wait until the cartoon characters promising a free prize with every shot come out in the schools. Watch when the “Gard” in Gardasil is used as “Guard” in the promotions — like it’s a good thing, while supplanting parental authority. The Demos have succombed totally to the Dark Force. We are on our own.
Jerry Brown did some crazy ass shit as mayor of Oakland. He was very authoritarian. He started the Oakland Military Institute which funneled young black men into the military.
It remains to be seen whether the Court gives the Commerce Clause the same broad reading with respect to health care as it did with respect to marijuana.
For the third time in one of these threads, where is the Just Say Now petition opposing this? I’ll sign. It needs to go to Obama and any other authority who’s trying this kind of suppression …
More broken promises.
This guy Obama’s gonna set a record, I swear.
You and me both. Every time I think Obama can’t be a bigger moron/a**h*** he goes and proves me wrong. Then he’s going to blame me when all the young people that voted for him in 2008 stay home. What a tool. I thought supporting Obama was a vote against Hilary and the DLC but instead I got DCL on steroids.
Oops. DLC on steroids…..
o Department of Homeland Security – The US Customs and Border Patrol has established highway checkpoints on internal US highways, both north-south and east-west, to catch and prosecute travelers who have drugs in their possession. For example there are many within the state of California. The initial rationale provided by HSA was that these checkpoints were necessary to catch illegal aliens who slipped through the border. This rationale was approved by Supreme Court decision. However, with alien traffic dropping off, and there being so much more money involved in the drug war (with the commensurate corruption of Border Patrol agents and others) these checkpoints are now primarily oriented on US travelers in hopes of finding drugs, and not on aliens. This includes active dog-aided searches of internal-US travelers having medical marijuana in their possession.
Question: I recently read the Whitehouse was opening an on-line site for submitting petitions . . . and said that those petitions at the top of the list would be forwarded for executive consideration. Now I understand that the Executive cannot pass legislation. (But as discussed above, he can decide how to marshall resources to impact current law–and is doing so to the detriment of medical marijuana.) My question is this: is the new site allowing the Executive to determine what is truly important to the American people–and then demonstrating his power by attacking the most popular issues in the most harmful way possible? [Sure am glad my naivete has given way to cynicism, and I chose NOT to offer Mr. President any of my well-reasoned suggestions or petitions.]
So the government wants to say that marijuana patients are addicts and therefore shouldn’t be able to purchase guns. Do they really think that a bunch of stoners are gonna put their Doritos down and whip out their guns and do something threatening? Somehow when I picture that I find it laughably implausible. Y’know?
It kinda makes me think there’s something else going on. Actually it makes me sure that something else is going on because this reasoning is so pathetic.
A long time ago (for some), during Nixon’s reign, there was a distinction between hard drugs and soft drugs. Pot was a soft drug. Then Nixon’s people got pot reclassified as a hard drug, in the same class as heroin, and so the War On Drugs began in earnest, with the targets being not just those “Negros hopped up on reefer madness” but also those dirty fucking hippies. And thus an industry was born.
It would be nice if as a start, pot was reclassified as a soft drug and penalties adjusted accordingly. I don’t expect this to happen because as with most things, follow the money. There’s too much money involved for there to be any change based on a scientific, medical, and rational basis.
Obama is a bigger asshole than Bush. You can quote me on that.
Showing your age. And your memory. I also recall when pot was more rationally classified. But, since they are all the same, I only use crack, meth, and heroin now. Usually all at once.
Big Pharma, MIC, TBTF launderers.
Those Panama & Columbia trade agreements currently the legislation du jour are a mere coincidence.
I don’t remember that time, but I do study history in depth. I remember listening to the hearings from the Nixon administration and Not ONE…Repeat, NOT ONE scientist or medical person who testified said marijuana was dangerous or was of “No Medical Use”!!! They did say, “More research was needed.” The politicians, afraid of the peaceful happy hippies in the streets wanted this illegal. God forbid we have people sitting around in public reading books, discussing politics or dancing in the streets because they are happy. Nope, they would rather put those happy people in lockup- Yikes!!! Happiness might spread–We need to do something QUICK!! They did. They made it a schedule I drug. How Sad–How Tragic!!
This is a Constitutional issue. This is a human rights issue. This is a financial issue. This is a medical issue. I could go on with all the issues impacted by Prohibition, but won’t because if you’re reading or posting here…You already understand the issues.
In Vermont, if one wants medical marijuana, one has to be near death. I find that interesting. Only give marijuana to someone before they die. Why not give it to them in the beginning of treatments or therapies? Maybe then people could avoid death all together. I read over all of the requirements and regulations. They come to your house, take pictures of your entrances, take pictures of you and tell you where you can build a grow room. Oh yes, it has to be in a locked room. Most who are clinging to life by a thread, cannot pay for such facilities to be built. I thought about all of this…I would not want to give them my picture, my finger prints, allow them access to my house to search to see if I have more than my fair share of cookies. I would not want the federal government arresting me because I’m sick and tried to follow the laws of our state. Nope…This is the kind of thing people in some states are enduring. Now the DOJ is saying they will arrest people and confiscate property for issuing the license??? As if they don’t have enough people in the prison system.
I have posted before that Obummer has no authority over his goon squads: DEA, IRS, CIA, FBI, ATF, HSA, Border Patrol…There is no control or leadership in government. I was duped as were most of you in regards to ‘the promises’. I will not be duped again. The Revolution is at hand. Most of us have nothing to lose. They already took it from us.