Justice Department Memo Says No Way To Large Scale Marijuana Farms
One to two times per year we hear about a new “proposition” that will legalize marijuana in specific states, late last year it was California Proposition 19 and Arizona Prop 203. However, while states fight to choose whether marijuana should be legalized or at least legalized for medicinal purposes, federal laws are still clear, you can’t grow marijuana…period.
Actually it’s not so cut and dry, not even close! The Justice Department in 2009 announced that they would not go after patients and caregivers who complied with state law but in a new memo written and sent to federal prosecutors last week Deputy Attorney Gen. James M. Cole he states:
“There has, however, been an increase in the scope of commercial cultivation, sale, distribution and use of marijuana for purported medical purposes.”
The memo comes at a time when some cities and states were planning to setup large scale “revenue projects” for marijuana distribution such as Oakland. The chief of the Americans for Safe Access calls the Cole memo:
“A step backward,” while noting, “We kind of regard this as kind of the equivalent of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The message to states setting up distributions systems, he says, is “if you get too big, we may well put a target on your back.”
It’s still unclear how “large” a growing operation must become in order to find themselves with a Federal target on their backs, however I fail to believe that growers will stop pressing the bounds of what is allowed until they have a more clear idea of what is “federally” acceptable.
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Jul 3, 2011
All the federal laws prohibiting marijuana are illegal. They are an unconstitutional infringement on our religious freedom and based on racial profiling. They are used to selectively take our freedom, property and children away from us based on religious prejudice. I'm calling it ethnic cleansing.
I blog about it daily in the comments at AlterNet. I had a big plan to end war globally so I talk about it and 'they' try to stop me. Here is the law the feds need to start following,
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
I hope that one looks familiar.
Reverend Lauren Unruh.
THC Ministry, Pleasant Hill, California.
A Native American Church.
Jul 4, 2011
Legalize it already. Why not tax it? We're broke already. The war on drugs has been nothing short of epic failure.
Jul 4, 2011
Happy Fourth of July! May you continue to live in freedom and to stand against the forces of tyranny!
“If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.” Thomas Jefferson.
“Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere.” George Washington.
By the way, Indian Hemp referred to the form of hemp grown for medicine (Cannabis Indica: marijuana) and not the form of the plant used for fiber…
Jul 5, 2011
On June 17, 1971, President Nixon told Congress that "if we cannot destroy the drug menace in America, then it will surely destroy us." After forty years of trying to destroy "the drug menace in America" we still *haven't* been able to destroy it and it still *hasn't* destroyed us. Four decades is long enough to realize that on this important issue, President Nixon was wrong! All actions taken as a result of his invalid and paranoid assumptions (e.g. the federal marijuana prohibition) should be ended immediately!
It makes no sense for taxpayers to fund the federal marijuana prohibition when it *doesn't* prevent people from using marijuana and it *does* make criminals incredibly wealthy and incite the Mexican drug cartels to murder thousands of people every year.
We need legal adult marijuana sales in supermarkets, gas stations and pharmacies for exactly the same reason that we need legal alcohol and tobacco sales – to keep unscrupulous black-market criminals out of our neighborhoods and away from our children. Marijuana must be made legal to sell to adults everywhere that alcohol and tobacco are sold.
"There's something extraordinarily perverse when we're so concerned about preventing addicts from having access to drugs that we destroy the lives of many times more people, either through untreated pain or other drug war damage".