...they can't make Washington recriminalize pot possession. You can possess up to an ounce as of next Thursday, and the only thing the feds can do about it is enforce federal pot laws themselves. But they don't have enough DEA agents for that to be an effective threat.

The genie is out of the bottle.

They won't be raiding college dorm rooms, but they will probably go after those who try to sell it openly.

I mean...that would be a big deal kinda right? wouldnt they be taking a stand against the state in a sense? if the state has state run stores up....and the feds come raid a state store....that really put state and feds at odds with each other....they arent gonna do that...theres no way in hell....

right, ask a californian if they will.... 90% of the mm stores that used to be open in sacramento a year ago are now closed.

are washington's stores going to be state run?

so now the state will have weed stores by Dec 2013

all my rights of citizenship come Thursday!

Just in time for the holiday season and our local neighborhood solstice party and bonfire.

Gonna be extra fun this year!

One last toke before the end of the world, 12.21.12.



J/K

LOLOLOL!

Hey, the Pukes and TeaFreaks should be happy that the state is exercising it's "rights".

I have no idea why this is even a conservative V liberal topic. Due to the WoD, MJ isn't just about an intoxicating plant at this point. It touches issues such as the environment, justice, the economy, the budget, individual rights, revenue, etc....

You could from any point on the political spectrum and find a damn good reason to end the ridiculous scheduling of marijuana.

I have conservative acquaintances, friends and family members who are pro-legalization, and liberal ones against it. And vica versa.

The general direction from all sides does seem to be pro-legalization. Victory is within reach.

Polls consistently show lower conservative support for legalization than among liberals or moderates.

Lower support among Republicans than among Democrats or independents.

Social conservatives hate pot, but free market conservatives or libertarians are more favorable, as they should be.

This is being made clearer and clearer every day. XD I'm not interested in non-prescription drugs of any kind (including alcohol) but I'm still very happy for those who have now been given the freedom to do what they want with their own bodies.

Proud to live in the Evergreen State!

If I understand this correctly (and I've been following every update I can find ever since November 6)...

The WA state attorney general* is required by law to ENFORCE initiatives.

This means he can't oppose the new pot laws. It also means he can't take a "wait and see" or a "just leave me out of it" position.

He is legally bound to make sure the growth, distribution, and taxation of recreational marijuana is fully underway and functional by December 1, 2013. (Simply possessing it will be legal this coming Thursday.)

*The incoming attorney general is a Democrat who was elected by a huge margin.

It's called Jury Nullification and has a long history from colonial times. Google "John Peter Zenger."

If he comes down on this he will go down even further in my book - he's already on double secret probation with me. Pot should be decriminalized everywhere. It makes no sense to have alcohol legal when pot isn't.

Legalized pot is a win/win/win/win. We can mellow out if we choose, people won't have a criminal record for a small amount of it, violence will be reduced, and it will bring a financial windfall - and if the Feds get wise they can get in on that lucrative revenue source.

As Earl Pitts says, "Wake Up America"!

We are living in interesting times. Cheers.

That would have made a little bit more sense. I wonder if they put the implementation in quickly to head off the Feds from going to court.

LOL! They made it that way, so people could buy it for Christmas presents.

But I never get presents anymore.

I don't think that's why they did it though, seriously. I think the idea was to put the law into effect as soon as possible to head off the government stepping in. I suppose it is a good strategy (if I'm right, which I might not be).

Thanks for the thread, alp.

--the people who have developed the product and the market--so Monsanto, et al, can move in and monopolize the trade. That's what the DEA/FBI are doing now in California--ruining the small MJ medical marijuana entrepreneurs and their LEGAL (in California) businesses--with imprisonment, confiscation of their property, destruction of their lives and families.

That's what they did, with great violence, in Colombia--brutally displaced FIVE MILLION peasant farmers, calling it the "war on drugs" (with $7 BILLION of our tax dollars). Now the rightwing president of Colombia has called for legalization--of all drugs, actually.

Follow. The. Money.

...and giving the federal government and its multiple agencies too much credit, cohesiveness, and foresight. It's like the Manichean fallacy of marijuana prohibition.

The DEA goes after medical marijuana in California because that's what it does.

Do you have the slightest scintilla of evidence to back up your claim? If so, I'd like to see it.

come to sacramento and see what you can find. there used to be about 150 clubs a year ago, most of them are now closed. who wants to drive to the bay area for their weed? not me!

and now they're even going after the Mendocino County sheriff's department and the County of Mendocino which created the prototype Med-MJ licensing program. They are subpoenaing all the County records and going after our elected leaders and our own sheriffs who were administering the program. They are going after SMALL, LEGAL businesses (raids recently of 30 small grows with 10 plants each!) and SICK PEOPLE--people dying of cancer--for growing their LEGAL limit of plants. They are raiding people and businesses all over the northern counties. Ruining them! Inflicting them with endless legal trouble, imprisonment, destruciton of families, bankruptcy, confiscation of everything they own. I am just furious about this--and I have nothing to do with the Med-MJ business. It is a punitive, vengeful and goddammit it is evil!

I never saw anything like this under Bush--and, believe me, I am no Bush fan. He deserves to suffer all the circles of Dante's Inferno, as far as I'm concerned. (No, actually, my best punishment for Bush was to sentence him to a lifetime of community service cleaning bedpans in Veterans' Hospitals, wearing an electronic anklet. I don't believe in capital punishment--or Hell. In any case...) The whole Mendocino County Med-MJ program was developed and implemented during the Bush Junta. The fervor of the DEA/FBI in trying to punish and destroy the POLITICAL leaders in Mendocino County, who listened to their constituents and created this program, and even the SHERIFFS who implemented it, is unprecedented and it has all occurred under Obama. Letters or no letters, they are clearly out to DESTROY the Med-MJ business in the northern counties--by the raids that are occurring AND by stomping on a local government that did the right thing!

WHY? I ask myself. WHY?

Well, you have to know something about Colombia to figure this one out. Under Bush, a mafia don was running Colombia--a monster named Alvaro Uribe, some 70 of whose closest political associates are now in jail or under investigation for DRUG TRAFFICKING, ties to rightwing death squads and a host of other crimes. Bush turned over $7 BILLION of our tax money to this monster and his military, which proceeded not only with murdering thousands of trade unionists and other advocates of the poor, but also with the brutal displacement of FIVE MILLION peasant farmers--THE worst human displacement crisis on earth, bar none. Peasant farmers in Colombia, on very small farms, grow food for their families, along with growing a few coca leaves for local use, and may sell a few of those to drug operations to supplement extreme poverty incomes. These small players were WIPED OUT. Yet the cocaine keeps on flowing out of Colombia. So, clearly, Uribe's commission from the Bush Junta was to consolidate the trillion+ dollar cocaine trade into fewer hands and better direct its extremely lucrative revenue stream to certain beneficiaries (we can guess who those are, but, among them, were very likely the banksters through whom the money is laundered).

This jerkwad, Uribe, was also spying on judges and prosecutors very likely with the help of the U.S./Bush Junta embassy in Bogota. All of this was done in the name of the U.S. "war on drugs." Mind-boggling. "Alice in Wonderland" mind-boggling. The biggest racket in the world--the Colombian drug trade--was RUNNING THE COUNTRY! Uribe was their "made man"!

I won't go into it here, but there is "tip of the iceberg" evidence of U.S. atrocities in Colombia during the Bush Junta, in addition to the known atrocities of the U.S.-funded and trained Colombian military.

Now guess where Leon Panetta went in his first visible travel as CIA Director (under Obama)? Bogota! There were rumors of a Uribe coup to stay in power. Although we can't know what the CIA (nor any of our out-of-control security state machinery) is actually doing, the upshot seems to be that Panetta yanked Uribe from the stage (and landed him on a "silk cushion" probably because of what he knows about Bush Jr. & pals), and vetted and approved Uribe's successor, Manuel Santos. Uribe and Santos are of the same rightwing political party. Uribe is filthy dirty on drug trafficking, rightwing death squads and illegal domestic spying, with Colombian prosecutors on his tail, while Santos has managed to keep a cleaner image.

One more factor: The U.S./Colombia "free trade for the rich" agreement. Uribe/Bush cleared the peasants off the land, decapitated the labor movement and did all the other bloody prep for "free trade for the rich." Exit Uribe and Bush. Enter Santos and Obama who signed the agreement.

The next thing that happens is that MANUEL SANTOS comes out PUBLICLY for the TOTAL LEGALIZATION OF DRUGS.

Colombia is a U.S. client state. Its president just DOESN'T DO THIS without an okay from Washington.

This is my basis for saying that the Feds are now doing the same thing to small marijuana businesses in the U.S.--especially to the expert botanists and entrepreneurs of the Mendocino and northern California Med-MJ businesses, who developed the product and the market. THEY are the "peasants" being "run off the land." They are the "small players" here just like the peasants in Colombia.

And next we're going to see GMO marijuana, brought to you by Monsanto and sold at Rite-Aid. Big Pharma/Big Ag wants a monopoly. They don't want all these "small players." They want to drive them out of business. And that is what the DEA and the FBI are doing for them.

I voted for Obama. How could anyone with any intelligence and belief in the progress of the human race not do so? Even though we live in Diebold's world, it might make a difference and there really was no alternative and hasn't been for decades. But voting for him doesn't mean I have illusions about him. He is wrong on many things, lame and shackled on other things, and is rather quickly totting up his own list of war crimes, including the summary execution of people around the world, with no trial and no chance to defend themselves, by drone bombings.

Obama is Leon Panetta's protege, in my opinion. Panetta, whom some well-connected journalists believe to be the most powerful man in the world, has close ties to Bush Sr. He was a member of Bush Sr.'s "Iraq Study Group"--the group that I believe ousted Rumsfeld (largely over the Cheney/Rumsfeld intention to nuke Iran). Panetta then got appointed to stop the war between the Pentagon and the CIA that Cheney/Rumsfeld had started and to keep any fallout (for instance, from their outing of the entire CIA WMD counter-proliferation project) from falling on Jr. I believe that Panetta is also the watchdog for "the deal" with Obama and the Democratic leadership regarding no prosecutions or even investigation of Bush Junta war crimes.

By protege, yes, I mean that he was picked as a figurehead for a somewhat different kind of corporate rule than we had been inflicted with by Cheney and Rumsfeld and their figurehead, Bush Jr. Obama is, of course, smarter and way more simpatico than Bush Jr. I think he has good intentions. I think he was in truth elected, twice--or rather, and this is the crucial point, he was permitted to be elected--and won by far greater margins than we know. But he also chose to be, and is, the protege of very powerful men--most of them in the shadows, Leon Panetta out front.

That Panetta visit to Bogota was a very important one. I don't believe for one minute that Manuel Santos is calling for the legalization of drugs without his permission! Big Pharma/Big Ag now have the land, the "free market," the cheap farm labor (5 million unemployed, starving peasants) and the political permission of the president of Colombia to pursue their monopoly.

It's coming here next, believe me--once the "peasants" here have been punished, deprived of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and, above all, driven out of business.

It will seem to solve all of our problems. TRILLIONS of dollars will be saved by ending the corrupt, murderous, failed "war on drugs." BILLIONS in new tax revenue will flow into the government, saving the rich from fair taxation. And it will look, um, democratic. It's what the people want--shown in the votes in Washington State and Colorado and in polls. But it will have this downside: corporate control, corporate monopoly.

Many of Latin America's rightwing leaders are in favor of it. That is the weirdest part of it all. It's NOT the leftist leaders. It's the rightwing leaders! The president of Colombia. The president of Guatemala. Several former presidents and leaders--most of them rightwing or "neo-liberal"--of Mexico. The leftists have been csilent about this, while the rightwing leaders announce this astonishing position. They've gotten BILLIONS in military aid for the "war on drugs." Now they's FOR MARKETING those same drugs. ????!!!!

That's really what got me. What the hell is going on with this? It's coming here soon--from out in the boondocks and killing fields of the "war on drugs." Santos is "running it up the flagpole" for the transglobal corporations that are drooling over all that prime coca/MJ growing land, slave labor and "free trade" freedom to get even richer with the legalization of formerly illicit drugs. WE are the biggest market for these drugs. That is why the drugs are going to be legalized, here, starting with MJ. They have to have THIS market--and they want a monopoly of it. That is why the Feds are aggressively attacking the small, truly free markets, developers and entrepreneurs that have arisen in the states that have liberalized MJ laws.

Why would they go after the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors and Sheriffs Department? WHY?

THAT is NOT routine DEA/FBI behavior!

The other objector to my analysis, above, said they're just raiding pot farms because "that's what they do." But trying to destroy a local government which worked in good faith to implement a state law? That is new. Also, their concentration on LEGAL Med-MJ producers/retailers and consumers is very telling. Why? WHY are they deliberately offending and outraging people like this--voters, citizens, taxpayers, county supervisors? HUGE resources are being used--hundreds of agents and cops--to raid people with TEN PLANTS. Meanwhile, the real criminals ship cocaine and heroine and "Murder, Inc." into this country virtually without impediment and have been doing so for more than fifty years! What are they raiding small, peaceful, LEGAL businesses for? They don't have enough to do fighting REAL criminals?

I'm just shaking my head. It makes no sense--unless we understand that our federal government is run "of, by and for" transglobal corporations that have A PLAN of which these obnoxious raids and legal/political harassment of our local elected officials is a part.

You might as well say that the anonymous, remote "pilots" of drone bombers are killing people without benefit of trial because "that's what they do."

We may not know exactly where "the buck stops" these days, but we can be sure that the "buck stops" SOMEWHERE. These things are not accidents. They are POLICIES.

Then would the feds have any standing to complain?

the International treaties that keep marijuana illegal. This really isn't just about states rights. The Feds seem to feel obligated to uphold these treaties.

and local officials know it, just like the prohibition debacle back when. You can't arrest/imprison/feed/clothe a significant number of the population. It's arithmetic.

But guaranteed it won't happen totally without recourse until the corporations figure out how to get in on it and cut out the local guys as a business, at least small users/growers won't fear or be incarcerated.

We've been decriminalized. Hip, Hip Hooray!
The world is changing. My 82 year old mother voted to legalize marijuana, not because she wants to smoke it but because it decriminalizes her 6 children and several of her grandchildren. In Washington, every family has a pot smoker just like every family has a gay relative and an ethnically mixed cousin. We have embraced the new world order and its not what PNAC envisioned.

To really, truly see the day arrive when those who use marijuana don't have the threat of the Feds over their heads.

Although 60% of the American public approve of medical marijuana and marijuana, Obama is sticking with the "It's a public health issue." Some of us who are totally cynical when it comes to politics, see this as an indication that he has promised way too much to his buddies inside Big Pharma and his buddies in the Privatized Prison Industry.

It is apparent to many of us that the option that must be employed is this one: an Article V Constitutional Convention, to put Legal Marijuana in the Constitution by way of an Amendment. Obama let the residents of the state of California spend several years working their butts off to get an entire tangle of restrictions and legal considerations worked out, such that medical marijuana clinics could be set up and distribution centers could be operating. Then, just as these efforts were starting to pay off with some real revenue being seen - for the growers, for the center's owners and employees, and for the local governmental agencies that were receiving tax revenue, Obama's DEA came in and busted so much of this apart.

status of marijuana in Washington State or the nation. But that does not keep me from feeling giddy about the passage of this bill.
Perhaps what we will see is a public discussion about the forces that want to keep pot illegal, like the slave labor camps we call private prisons or big Pharma, as you note, or maybe some light will be shed on the repeated studies that suggest pot has medicinal qualities that retard the growth of cancer cells and in some cases destroy tumors completely.
I suspect these will be the topic of newspaper articles and television talk shows.
In any case, we have won a major battle. No matter what the Feds do, pot smokers will no longer be seen as criminals in Washington.

Last edited Wed Dec 12, 2012, 05:11 PM - Edit history (2)

Remember, I am writing this as a citizen of the state of California. So I have become a bit experienced with what is involved AFTER legislation is passed. Let's say, as happened last spring, the Federal DEA and local police come in and quash the ability of a med marijuana store or distribution center to be operating.

The newspaper article will list all the various AWFUL things about pot distribution - that "many" or at least "some" of the growers are connected with crime cabals. That people grow the stuff inside their homes, to reduce possibility of it being stolen. And that results in a huge surge of electric useage on the utility grid. (Now, usually,if there is any criminality involved, it is minor.) NO mention is made that before the med marijuana clinics were up and running and paying people to grow, that 1/2 of the pot that was being grown and sold in California, prior to the situation where local people can grow the stuff and sell to the clinics and stores, involved the Mexican drug cabals. Never ever ever does that fact get mentioned.

Last spring, at the height of the Obama supported, DOJ and DEA crackdown on various clinics, and distribution centers, one lengthy article in the "Press Democrat" concluded with this sentence - "For people in the county who have a valid prescription for medical marijuana, there is no need to worry. The ability of such citizens to obtain medical marijuana from pharmacy in England, will soon be possible."

Talk about needless outsourcing. This county, Sonoma County, is rather rural. And unemployment is very high. The state of California needs to see that people are dropping off the AFDC rolls, they need to be dropping of the state run insurance rolls, and the schools and fire districts are being cut back. But hey - let's outsource what could be the solution of many of our problems to England!

We just had another editorial from the "Press Democrat" yesterday, listing all the terrible things about medical marijuana being grown locally. It requires grow lamps for Pete's sake! Never mind that 57 cents out of every dollar that the government in Washington now spends involves the military. Apparently grow lamps are much more environmentally a No! than building yet another aircraft carrier is. No mention is made of the fact that were someone to have a healthy grow operation going for a couple years, then they could easily afford to convert their home to solar and wind - which means the grow residences would be off the grid.

Sounds just like what one would expect from this government and the shill press.
There ought to be a reality show about it called, "When Good Governments Go Bad". Hundreds of episodes could be made featuring elected officials from both parties. Opening show, "How DC Corrupts Good Men and Women" or "The Evil Inside".

Till then, we will ahve to continue to rely on Jon Stewart and Colbert for the stuff they sometimes air.

Were you able to catch Jon's opening segment where over in the House of representatives, McConnell, R, actually objected to his own legislation! (Mon or Tuesday nite's show - you can go to comedycentral.com and then click for Stewart's show and then watch.

It funny how the jester can get away with telling the truth, because it can be argued that he/she was making a joke, while no serious commentator can. Only the crazy are free.

government follows course, at the very reschedules and and at most legalizes cannabis.

A sound, sane, just, logical and compassionate policy toward cannabis and the American People is decades past due.

Thanks for the thread, alp.

Any willingness on the part of the Administration to let citizens have what they voted for work.

Obama couches his response to the destruction of California's distribution centers, the medical marijuana clinic shut downs etc, with words to the effect that "marijuana is a public health matter."

As recently as Sept 27th, DEA, ICE, and various police from local jurisdictions cracked down on 32 households in Santa Rosa Calif. The police had legit police business to work out against one household. When they noticed marijuana growing in several nearby backyards, they called in the DEA and other agencies.

So without warrants, they went in and busted up these 32 households. Adult members of the households were handcuffed, and forced to sit on the curb. Kids running up and down the street, crying.

Of course most of these peole were originally from South of the border, so why should anyone care at all?

And here is what we who want marijuana laws liberalized must do (Miore work, but Obama is in now for four more years, he has all those campaign promises to keep on behalf of Big Pharma and Big Prison industries. So work we all must!)

A bill presented in Congress re: Marijuana for the States


Here is an email I recently received. I don’t know the in’s and out’s of “Bill Language” so smarter people than me will have to inform us on what the bill(s) actually means.

1:38 AM
FROM: Jasmine Tyler, DPA
To: TrueDelphi
SUBJECT: New Bill in Congress to Protect Marijuana Legalization

Drug Policy Alliance email to TrueDelphi

Urge your representative to support a new bill that would protect marijuana legalization!
Take Action. Be sure and contact your representative today.

Even as the drug policy reform movement celebrates our historic victories legalizing marijuana in Colorado and Washington, and also letting citizens in Massachusetts have medical marijuana, we still have to ensure that the states can implement their laws without federal interference.

Several U.S. representatives from Colorado recently introduced a bipartisan bill to help protect our victories by giving the states room to implement the new laws. Tell your U.S. representative to support the bill that would enable the states to make their own marijuana laws.

The Respect States’ and Citizens’ Rights Act would affirm the ability for states to establish their own marijuana laws free from federal interference.

This bill’s primary sponsor, Democratic Congresswoman Diana Degette from Denver, was joined by her fellow Colorado Republican Congressman Mike Coffman — who voted against Amendment 64 but still wants to ensure that the federal government respects the will of voters.

Although Colorado and Washington voted to regulate and tax marijuana, these ballot initiatives are not going to implement themselves. We need to do everything we can to ensure the federal government plays a constructive — rather than destructive — role.

This is just the beginning of the end of marijuana prohibition. We still have our work cut out for us. And we need your help!

Urge your representative to support the new bill in Congress that would enable the states to implement their own marijuana laws free from federal interference.

I'm not a state's rights person, but the right to put in or take out of your body whatever you please is the most important civil rights issue of our time... and I will violate my strong central government principles to promote that.