Drug Prohibition: Still Stupid

[jocal505]

Thanks.

From the article:


Emergency deregulation seems like a much better idea than misusing words to double down on failed federal boondoggling.

Did Lewis Powell send you? Did he create you, too?

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Did Lewis Powell send you? Did he create you, too?

You're very focused on people I've never heard of.

Why?

And what does this have to do with the Reagan/Biden drug war?

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

If you really want to get this, you need to move your rigid concepts about the drug war, to learn something...from Fitty Cent.

I think this might be the first time you've expressed any interest in discussing a subject other than gungrabbing.

Please, go ahead. Give us your wisdom on the stupid drug war.

 

[jocal505]

My wisdom is to not trust anything which jizzes out of the Dogballs. In general, cheap scapegoating, practiced ignorance, and race-baiting are what I have found by following your posts.

DIVERSION ALERT
Gotcha. The subject you and I are discussing is racial equity, not the drug war. The drug war is what, a yuge Tom Ray propaganda straw man around here. The rampant gang activity is just a symptom of a wider, well-developed, racial imbalance. The racial imbalance created an economic imbalance, which further aggravated the racial imbalance. The situation is imploding, IMO, and a recently developed oligarchy is at the core of it, IMO.

MUCH SCAPEGOATING IN THE AIR *Research by Tom Dogballs Ray
--You spent a year or so on our forums presenting all the gang-type shootings you could glean from the Gun Violence Archives , as daily evidence that these composed the majority of mass shootings.
--You slipped in two days ago that most gun violence itself comes from an unspecified "demographic."
--Your drug war blathering is code for the gangstas are coming, and for the ganstas are the problem.
--Overall, you are wrong, and counter-factual, in this (loud) pattern of dis-information.

THE RACE CARD
Generally, the racial problem has been a long-standing stage prop, and boogey-man for you, via multiple forms of race-baiting, etc. You can't control yourself, and the undertone of this thread is a fine example.

 

[jocal505]

(Yo, Dogballs) Did Lewis Powell send you? Did he create you, too?

(Tom Ray) You're very focused on people I've never heard of.


Are you a non-reader or something? JFC. This guy Lewis Powell, and Roger Stone, and Leonard Leo, were unknown to you? Really? Two of 'em are icons to CATO. I need to school you again.

(Wiki) Lewis Franklin Powell Jr. (September 19, 1907 – August 25, 1998) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1972 to 1987.​

​

Born in Suffolk, Virginia, he graduated from both Washington and Lee Law School and Harvard Law School and served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. He worked for Hunton & Williams, a large law firm in Richmond, Virginia, focusing on corporate law and representing clients such as the Tobacco Institute. His Powell Memorandum became the blueprint for the rise of the American conservative movement and the formation of a network of influential right-wing think tanks and lobbying organizations, such as The Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council. In 1971, President Richard Nixon appointed Powell to succeed Associate Justice Hugo Black. He retired from the Court during the administration of President Ronald Reagan, and was eventually succeeded by Anthony Kennedy.​

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Senate speech, 05.27.21
THE SCHEME 1: THE POWELL MEMO Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse
(...) Powell was an ambitious Richmond corporate lawyer, and the turbulence of the 1960s was broadly distressing to America's corporate elite. The civil rights movement disrupted Jim Crow across the South, drawing out and exposing to the Nation the racist violence that had long enforced the social and legal norm of segregation and upsetting America's all- White corporate suites and boardrooms.

Anti-war protesters derided Dow Chemical Company's manufacture of napalm and scorned the entire military-industrial complex. Women's rights protesters challenged all-male corporate management structures. The environmental movement protested chemical leaks, toxic products, and the poisons belching from corporate smokestacks. Public health groups began linking the tobacco industry to deadly illnesses, and lead paint companies to brain damage in children.​

​

Ralph Nader criticized America's car companies for making automobiles that were “Unsafe at Any Speed” and causing carnage on America's highways. America's anxious corporate elite saw Congress respond with new and unwelcome laws and saw courts respond with big and unwelcome verdicts. Something had to be done.​

Powell's prominence in Virginia's civic, legal, social, and corporate circles (tobacco) had brought him attention in Washington, DC. A new client of his, the Washington, DC-based U.S. Chamber of Commerce, asked Powell for his help. The Chamber commissioned from Powell a secret report, a strategic plan for reasserting corporate authority over the political arena.

(...) The secret Powell report, titled “Attack on American Free Enterprise System,” was telling. It was telling, first, for the apocalyptic certainty of its tone. Powell's opening sentence was: “No thoughtful person can question that the American system is under broad attack.” By that, he meant the American economic system, but that assertion was footnoted with the parallel assertion that – and I am quoting him again – “The American political system of democracy under the rule of law is also under attack.”
This was, Powell asserted, “quite new in [American history].” “Business and the enterprise system are in deep trouble,” he wrote, “and the hour is late.”

The secret Powell report was an alarm.

The report is populated with liberal bogeymen: the bombastic lawyer William Kunstler; the popular author of “The Greening of America,” Charles Reich; the consumer advocate Ralph Nader, whom Powell said there should be, and I am quoting here, “no hesitation to attack.” Against them, Powell set establishment defenders like columnist Stewart Alsop and conservative economist Milton Friedman. Powell cloaked the concerns of corporate America as concerns of “individual freedom,” a rhetorical framework for corporate political power that persists to this day.

The battle lines were drawn. Indeed, the language in the Powell report is the language of battle: “attack,” “frontal assault,” “rifle shots,” “warfare.” The recommendations are to end compromise and appeasement – his words: “compromise” and “appeasement”— to understand that, as he said, “the ultimate issue may be survival”— and he underlined the word “survival” in his report – and to call for “the wisdom, ingenuity and resources of American business to be marshaled against those who would destroy it.''

Well, for this, you had to have a plan, and the Powell plan was to go big. Here is what he said:

“Strength lies in organization, in careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations.”

Powell recommended a propaganda effort staffed with scholars and speakers, a propaganda effort to which American business should devote “10 percent of its total advertising budget,'” including an effort to review and critique textbooks, especially in economics, political science, and sociology.

“National television networks should be monitored in the same way that textbooks should be kept under constant surveillance,” he said. Corporate America should aggressively insist on the right to be heard, on “equal time,” and corporate America should be ready to deploy, and I am quoting him here, “whatever degree of pressure — publicly and privately — may be necessary.” This would be “a long road,” Powell warned, “and not for the fainthearted.”

In his section entitled “The Neglected Political Arena,” Powell recommended using political influence to stem “the stampedes by politicians to support any legislation related to `consumerism' or to the `environment.'” And, yes, Powell put the word “environment” in derogatory quote marks in the original.

“Political power,” Powell wrote, “is necessary; … [it] must be assiduously cultivated; and … when necessary … must be used aggressively and with determination.” He concluded that “it is essential [to] be far more aggressive than in the past,” with “no hesitation to attack,” “not the slightest hesitation to press vigorously in all political arenas,” and no “reluctance to penalize politically those who oppose” the corporate effort. In a nutshell, no holds barred.

And then came the section of the secret report that may have launched the scheme to capture the court. It is called “Neglected Opportunity in the Courts.” This section focused on what Powell called “exploiting judicial action.” He called it an “area of vast opportunity.”

He wrote: “Under our constitutional system, especially with an activist-minded Supreme Court” – I will intervene to say, of course, we have today, as a result of the scheme, the most activist-minded Supreme Court in American history, but back to his quote – “especially with an activist-minded Supreme Court, the judiciary may be the most important instrument for social, economic and political change.”

Powell urged that the Chamber of Commerce become the voice of American business in the courts, with a “highly competent staff of lawyers,” if “business is willing to provide the funds.'” He concludes: “The opportunity merits the necessary effort.” The secret report may well have been the single most consequential piece of writing that Lewis Powell ever did in a long career of consequential writings. The tone and content of the report actually explain a lot of decisions in his future career. Yet this secret report received no attention – not even a passing mention – in Professor Jeffries' detailed, authoritative, and authorized Powell biography.

The secret Chamber report was not disclosed to the U.S. Senate in Senate confirmation proceedings when, shortly after delivering his secret report to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Lewis Powell was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Richard Nixon.

The secret report was dated August 23, 1971. Two months later, on October 22, Nixon nominated Powell to the Supreme Court. Lewis Powell was sworn in as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on January 7, 1972, less than 6 months after this secret report was delivered to the Chamber.

(Sheldon Whitehouse) To be continued. I yield the floor.

From <https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/speeches/the-scheme-1-the-powell-memo>

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Two months later, on October 22, Nixon nominated Powell to the Supreme Court.

At last, a shred of relevance.

As I noted in 2014, and as even Olsonist managed to figure out many years later, the stupid drug war was originally a Nixon/TeamR project. Racist, like any prohibition program.

Your thought that I'm a supporter is just another reason I know you're a non-reader. This whole thread is about opposing the Nixon/Reagan/Biden drug war.

 

[jocal505]

@Pertinacious Tom . You are CATO material.

If you are a CATO guy (with CATO or ALEC right up front on your Facebook page, for example), you are no supporter of racial equity. Period. Word.

When someone tells you who he is, believe him. Yeah, read the brand.

Your race card habit is being sent up your ass, because you sport the CATO brand, and because you block for the Koch outcomes, while smarmy. These regressive elements are anathema to racial parity...and so is gun violence, and so is knowing it all.





This is fun. Dogballs!

 

[Keith]

Childhood’s Greatest Danger: The Data on Kids and Gun Violence

Gun violence recently surpassed car accidents as the leading cause of death for American children. No group of kids has been spared, but some have fared far worse.

t.co

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Hat tip to Garland for starting to undo Biden's drug warrior legacy.

Attorney General Orders Prosecutors To End Crack Cocaine Sentencing Disparity as Congress Dithers

Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo today to federal prosecutors seeking to effectively end charging and sentencing disparities between crack cocaine and powder cocaine.

...

The sentences were the result of the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, co-sponsored by then-Sen. Joe Biden (D–Del.). The law created a 100 to 1 sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenders, the former of whom were predominantly black. The result was that someone possessing five grams of crack cocaine would receive the same five-year mandatory minimum sentence as someone with 500 grams of powder cocaine, despite there being little to no pharmacological difference between the two substances.

In 2007, Biden endorsed legislation that would have completely eliminated the disparity. A compromise bill, the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, reduced it to 18 to 1. In 2018, the FIRST Step Act made the Fair Sentencing Act's reductions retroactive, leading to the release of roughly 3,000 federal crack offenders.

The attorney general's memo comes as legislation flounders in Congress to end the crack vs. powder sentencing disparity. The EQUAL Act would reduce the penalties for federal crack cocaine offenses to the same level as those for powder cocaine offenses, and it would make those changes retroactive, meaning federal crack offenders currently serving prison sentences would be eligible to have their sentences reduced. The bill passed the House last year by a wide bipartisan margin. However, it has languished in the Senate, despite intense lobbying from criminal justice advocacy groups. It has failed to make it to the Senate floor, and as the legislative session draws to a close, its only hope for passage now is to be shoved into the gigantic omnibus spending bill slithering its way through Congress.

Reuters reported today that Senate negotiators had reached a potential compromise to appease Republicans. The compromise legislation would reduce the sentencing disparity to 2.5 to 1, and it would not be retroactive. However, congressional leaders from both parties in both chambers will have to agree on the language, and Senate Republicans could still balk.
...

100 to 1 was bad. 18 to one is better but still bad. 2.5 to one would be better still but still bad.

And 1 to 1 would still be bad because the sentence for possessing either should be zero. Locking up users of politically disfavored drugs makes our societal drug problems worse, not better. And yes, that means the really dangerous drugs like alcohol just as much as it means cannabis or cocaine to me.

 

[jocal505]

Hat tip to Garland for starting to undo Biden's drug warrior legacy.

Attorney General Orders Prosecutors To End Crack Cocaine Sentencing Disparity as Congress Dithers



100 to 1 was bad. 18 to one is better but still bad. 2.5 to one would be better still but still bad.

And 1 to 1 would still be bad because the sentence for possessing either should be zero. Locking up users of politically disfavored drugs makes our societal drug problems worse, not better. And yes, that means the really dangerous drugs like alcohol just as much as it means cannabis or cocaine to me.

LMFAO. Yo, Dogballs. No race-baiting for us today? Nope, just something from reason.com. again.

Was Fred Koch a member of the John Birch Society?​

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Yes, According to 5 sources.​

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footnote: 407 In 1958, Koch became a founding member of the John Birch Society, a far-right American political advocacy group that opposes communist infiltration and supports limited government. Koch held John Birch Society chapter meetings in the basement of his family's home in Wichita, Kansas.​

Fred C. Koch - Wikipedia​

en.wikipedia.org​

​

​

​

[1] John Birch Society’s front groups: Americans for Prosperity, Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, American Legislative Exchange Council, Heritage Foundation, CATO Institute, Institute for Justice, Kansas Policy Institute, Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Reason Foundation &amp; Reason Magazine
<http://strangebrew4.com/Stage_Left/2012/05/25/koch-brothers-and-alec-are-the-new-john-birch-society/

​

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

The Failure To Enact Marijuana Banking and Crack Sentencing Reforms Is a Window on Congressional Dysfunction

...
When McConnell argued against adding the SAFE Banking Act to the NDAA, he complained that Democrats were "trying to jam in unrelated items with no relationship whatsoever to defense," including legislation "making our financial system more sympathetic to illegal drugs." The next day, he rejoiced that the NDAA "is not getting dragged down by unrelated liberal nonsense," such as "easier financing for illegal drugs," which "was kept out." He said "that same lesson must carry over into our subsequent conversations" about the Consolidated Appropriations Act.

McConnell is right that Congress should be approving or rejecting legislation on its own merits rather than voting for it only because it has been incorporated into a must-pass, end-of-the-year spending bill. But the latter approach is how Congress has been operating for decades, including the years when McConnell was the Senate majority leader. And the FY 2023 NDAA that McConnell deemed acceptable is rife with provisions that have little or nothing to do with national defense, addressing subjects such as fentanyl trafficking, money laundering, "global food security," conservation of tropical forests and coral reefs, disaster relief, "fair hiring in banking," "financial data transparency," "arctic research," "judicial security and privacy," and "incentives for states to create sexual assault survivors' bill(s) of rights."

McConnell clearly is not defending a principle of judicious lawmaking. He is selectively applying that principle as an argument against legislation he dislikes for other reasons. It is not surprising that a conservative octogenarian with a long history of supporting draconian drug policies and opposing marijuana legalization would resist a bill that takes an important step toward normalizing state-authorized cannabis suppliers. But McConnell is plainly wrong to describe the SAFE Banking Act as "liberal nonsense" that no conservative in his right mind could support.

The House has approved cannabis banking reform more than half a dozen times, including an April 2021 vote in which the SAFE Banking Act attracted the support of 215 Democrats and 106 Republicans. The Senate version has 42 co-sponsors, including nine Republicans. Given the SAFE Banking Act's bipartisan appeal, you might wonder why it is still just a bill.

It's not because the arguments in favor of the SAFE Banking Act—which include respecting state autonomy, removing burdens on small businesses, and protecting public safety by reducing the threat of robbery to marijuana merchants who currently are forced to rely heavily on cash—are persuasive only to crazy progressives. It's because Schumer until recently refused to allow consideration of the SAFE Banking Act, insisting that his own marijuana legislation take priority and arguing that piecemeal reforms would make federal legalization harder.

"If we let this bill out," Schumer warned in 2021, "it will make it much harder and take longer to pass comprehensive reform." The Drug Policy Alliance, which joined Schumer in opposing the SAFE Banking Act last year, shared his concern and thought his strategy made sense. The organization bizarrely argued that passing the bill would "prioritize marijuana profits over people," as if owners and employees of marijuana businesses, who face a potentially deadly threat that is exacerbated by barriers to financial services, don't qualify as people.

How did that work out? "Democrats Blew The Opportunity For Federal Cannabis Reform," says the headline above a Marijuana Moment article by Erik Altieri, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. "While it was always likely going to be a bit of a long shot to pass something as comprehensive as full descheduling through the Senate," Altieri writes, "many of us at least hoped that other, more incremental marijuana reform bills would move forward." With the exception of a modest bill aimed at facilitating marijuana research, that did not happen, thanks to Schumer and his morally obtuse allies.

The failure to pass the EQUAL Act, which would eliminate the nonsensical sentencing disparity between crack and cocaine powder, presents a similar puzzle. The bill passed the House in September, when 143 Republicans joined 218 Democrats in voting for it. The Senate version has 21 co-sponsors, including 11 Republicans, enough to overcome a filibuster. At least three additional Republican senators favor sharply reducing the crack/powder gap without eliminating it.

It certainly looks like legislation along these lines has enough support to pass the Senate. But Republican senators who had been open to including crack sentencing reform in the Consolidated Appropriations Act reportedly balked after Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo last Friday that instructed federal prosecutors to "promote the equivalent treatment of crack and powder cocaine offenses" in their charging decisions and sentencing recommendations.

As McConnell saw it, Garland's memo usurped congressional authority by shielding crack defendants from mandatory minimum sentences. So instead of asserting that authority by rectifying a blatantly unjust penalty scheme, Congress has once again kicked the can down the road.
...

I'm glad there's such significant Duopoly support for things like banking and sentencing reform as obvious first steps to take. In my lifetime, we've progressed from "that libertarian nonsense could never get introduced, let alone passed" to "why can't these popular measures get passed into law?"

That's progress. Glaciers do make progress.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

This could be a headline for most any drug war article since I started reading them decades ago, but here we go again.

Stupid drug warrior blames prohibition opponents for failures

The problem with San Francisco, according to Stanford University psychologist* Keith Humphreys, is too much "libertarianism." Since the City by the Bay is not exactly known for light governance, that may seem counterintuitive. But Humphreys, who was a senior White House adviser on drug policy during the Obama administration, has in mind something closer to libertinism, which he says has long characterized San Francisco's culture. In a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed piece published on Tuesday, he blames excessive tolerance of vice, which he equates with libertarianism, for "fueling San Francisco's drug crisis."

That analysis is doubly wrong. Humphreys misconstrues libertarianism while ignoring its critique of drug prohibition, which is essential in understanding why drug-related deaths have reached record levels across the United States not just despite but largely because of the government's efforts to prevent them.

...

It never ends. At least it's becoming a bit less popular. If that continues for enough decades, we might stop electing drug warriors.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Yo, Dogballs. No race-baiting for us today?

Sorry for my oversight. I can't quote you every day in every thread, but here's another bone.

The immature, short-sighted desire for gunpower is amplified, and more volatile, among blacks. Even more deadly than among whites.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

California Shroomin'

Colorado voters last month approved a groundbreaking ballot initiative that decriminalized five psychedelics derived from fungi or plants: psilocybin, psilocyn (another psychoactive component of "magic mushrooms"), dimethyltryptamine (DMT, the active ingredient in ayahuasca), ibogaine (a psychedelic derived from the root bark of the iboga tree), and mescaline (the active ingredient in peyote). This month a California legislator introduced a bill, S.B. 58, that emulates Colorado's new policy, aiming to legalize the possession, preparation, noncommercial transfer, and transportation of those five drugs by adults 21 or older.


That bill's sponsor, state Sen. Scott Wiener (D–San Francisco), unsuccessfully tried something similar last year. It's not clear whether the new bill will have a better chance in 2023. But polling indicates that California voters are receptive to the idea, which builds on a series of reforms in other jurisdictions that suggest psychedelic prohibition could collapse faster than marijuana prohibition did, thanks largely to recent research on the potential benefits of these drugs.

...

Wiener last year introduced a decriminalization bill, S.B. 519, that included LSD and MDMA, synthetic drugs that are not covered by S.B. 58 even though both have been studied extensively. (MDMA, in fact, may be approved as a psychotherapeutic aid by the Food and Drug Administration within the next few years.) The narrower approach that Wiener is taking with his new bill looks like a concession to the sentiment in favor of "natural medicine," the term used in Proposition 122.
...

Kids these daze. I wouldn't know an iboga tree or ibogaine if they were put in front of me.

There's always wiki.

The psychoactivity of the root bark of the iboga tree (Tabernanthe iboga), from which ibogaine is extracted, was first discovered by the Pygmy tribes of Central Africa, who passed the knowledge to the Bwiti tribe of Gabon. French explorers in turn learned of it from the Bwiti tribe and brought ibogaine back to Europe in 1899–1900, where it was subsequently marketed in France as a stimulant under the trade name Lambarène. Ibogaine-containing preparations are used for medicinal and ritual purposes within the African spiritual traditions of the Bwiti, who claim to have learned it from the Pygmy peoples. Although ibogaine's anti-addictive properties were first widely promoted in 1962 by Howard Lotsof, its Western medical use predates that by at least a century.

Additionally, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) studied the effects of ibogaine in the 1950s.[8]

Ibogaine is an indole alkaloid that is obtained either by extraction from the iboga plant or by semi-synthesis from the precursor compound voacangine,[9][10] another plant alkaloid. The total synthesis of ibogaine was described in 1956.

I wonder if it was an accidental discovery, or what were those Pygmy people trying to do?

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

I thought we were just dumbass college kids.

Turns out some of us might have been innovative psychonauts, we just didn't know to think up a word for it.

The “Psychonauts” Training to Explore Another Dimension

...
Thorbahn is one of the first in a class of so-called “psychonauts” exploring new frontiers in hallucinogenic research, preparing to use a technology called extended-state DMT. When the drug is smoked, a trip lasts minutes—despite feeling much longer. But with a constant stream of DMT supplied to a user and blood serum levels of the molecule regulated, that trip can last hours or even days—seemingly an eternity.
...

Training. Exploring. Tripping balls off.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

More on the Ruan case.

The Blurry Legal Line Between Doctors and Drug Dealers



Ignoring intent and punishing people anyway is a common theme for prohibition programs, and that's what is happening here. Again.

"Legitimate medical purpose" is something about which people disagree. Lots of us think there are legitimate medical purposes for cannabis and its extracts, but federal law says no.

Doctors have recently asked me and my dying brother to rate our own pain on a scale of 1 to 10. So that's how "objective" measurement is achieved.

And since that's obviously as stupid as the rest of the drug war, the real standard that Dr. Ruan encountered has nothing to do with how much pain his patients may have suffered, or may have told him they suffered. It's just a DEA worksheet of what other doctors have done.

If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, at least until the DEA overrides his medical judgement and substitutes their own.

And the fallout from the Ruan case

Doctors' 'pill mill' convictions partially tossed after U.S. Supreme Court ruling

A federal appeals court on Thursday overturned key parts of the convictions of two Alabama doctors accused of running a massive "pill mill" after the U.S. Supreme Court in June made it harder to prosecute physicians for illegally prescribing addictive drugs like opioids.

The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the convictions of Xiulu Ruan and John Couch for unlawfully dispensing controlled substances after finding that under a Supreme Court ruling in June in Ruan's case, jurors were wrongly instructed on how to determine their guilt.

...

The war on pill mills brought us fentanyl. I'm tired of the drug warrior version of winning.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Erlichman Says Nixon's Drug War Targeted Political Enemies

“You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

Of course, Nixon didn't invent lying and dividing people just to get more power for government. He was following in Anslinger's footsteps...

Hey, it looks like news of this finally reached Canada! That's awesome, eh?

Ah, the good old days, before the GOP went bad. /purple

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Decriminalize Moonshine!

Ohio might make it legal there, but making your own wishkey is against federal law.

You can make wine and beer, but there are practical limits to how many dollars in taxes you can evade by doing it. That limit is a LOT higher for distilled spirits, so making your own is still against the law.

 

[jocal505]

Meet the gangstas. Behold their culture, if you can. Sing their songs, if you can?

Here's a present-tense crossover for us. A thoughtful and consistent effort to present what they call "the culture." My understanding has been greatly advanced by a Jewish lawyer, journo, and talking head. This guy attended Garfield High School, long after Jimi, in my old neighborhood.

The Beat With Ari Melber on MSNBC

Join the MSNBC The Beat Ari Melber community for more news, articles and videos. Hear from Ari Melber guests today for commentary on politics and news.

www.msnbc.com

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Decades ago, I recall drug war debates that went kind of like this:

Nutjobs: Legalize all drugs in all situations with no regulation of any aspect of the drug business!

Helpful Lefties: How about if we just let some very, very sick people use a little cannabis under very strict rules?

Nutjobs: NOOOO! All or nothing!

Admittedly, I was one of those nutjobs.

Over time, I've seen the value of incremental change, doing what's possible even if utopia can't be achieved in one giant step. As mentioned, I'm glad that my brother's treatment is less illegal than my father's, though I still deeply resent the fact that his property is now a nice drug war looting target.

Now it seems Chuck Schumer and the Drug Policy Alliance need to learn what their elk taught me years ago.


I join with Schumer and Booker in wanting an "eventual marijuana policy addresses restorative justice issues like decriminalization and expungement." I think some of the things they want are not all that much like those two things, on which we can agree.

Cory Booker Finally Realized SAFE Banking Reform Was Good After All

...
Unfazed by such criticism, Schumer and Booker blocked the SAFE Banking Act again in June 2022, when the Senate removed it from the America COMPETES Act. They did not relent until late last year, when they were suddenly open to marijuana banking reform combined with grants aimed at encouraging expungement of marijuana records.


After the midterm elections, when Republicans won control of the House, Booker warned that marijuana reform could take "many years" unless Congress approved it during the lame-duck session. He lamented that "there's very little time in this lame duck and a lot of things that people want to do."


Schumer desperately scrambled to pass the SAFE Banking Act as an amendment to the 2022 NDAA or the Consolidated Appropriations Act. When those end-of-the-year negotiations came to naught, Schumer blamed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.), who had condemned the SAFE Banking Act as "liberal nonsense" that Democrats were inappropriately trying to include in unrelated bills. Booker likewise blamed Republican leaders in the Senate, who he said were "dead set [against] anything [involving] marijuana."


It's true that McConnell opposed the SAFE Banking Act. But Schumer and Booker opposed it first, and their misguided resistance doomed a meaningful improvement they claimed to favor.


"Democrats controlled the House, Senate, and White House and still couldn't get cannabis reform bills passed," Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.), a co-sponsor of the SAFE Banking Act, noted in December. "I would go much further and end the federal war on a plant entirely, but at LEAST let legal business operate as a legal business."


Now Booker is trying to erase this history. He told NJ.com he wants to "drive [marijuana reform] as far as we can go" but worried that "the dynamics have shifted pretty dramatically" now that Republicans control the House. It is "definitely going to be harder, but not impossible," he said. "I do think there's a chance. Remember there's always been a good bipartisan coalition of people that want to do something….The urgencies that pushed us towards some kind of partnership are still there, on the business side as well as the restorative justice side."


Where was this sense of urgency when Booker stubbornly resisted the "something" that could have been achieved thanks to that "good bipartisan coalition"? Even as he opposed the SAFE Banking Act in 2021, he conceded that passing it would have been "easy." He squandered that opportunity in favor of a quixotic effort to pass a broader bill that was dead on arrival. His self-righteous, anti-capitalist posturing, which was echoed by the DPA, made him complicit in maintaining a situation that puts lives at risk, all so he could claim a moral high ground he manifestly does not deserve.

Rand Paul is right and Booker and Schumer should have passed SAFE Banking when (Booker said) it would have been easy. He's also more broadly right about just ending the federal war on this plant.