C-Span TV: Marijuana Legalization and California Ballot Initiative Prop. 19 To Be Debated and Discussed This Saturday; NORML Director Allen St. Pierre vs. Former DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson
Update: Watch today’s program here. The 45 minute discussion on legalizing cannabis starts at the 2:19:30 mark. Like the many current commentators’ lament, I too wish more questions were directed to the reform side and/or allowed some rebuttal to any number of Mr. Hutchinson’s misdirections and contradictions. However, unlike AM radio or cable TV news shows, guests on C-Span are encouraged not to talk over each other, keeping answers short, and to try to take as many calls as possible from viewers.
As noted, as has been the case every single time I’ve appeared on C-Span, most of the callers are critical of the current policies and favor law reform.
I’ve been invited back to C-Span to debate and discuss the topics of cannabis legalization, and specifically California’s upcoming vote on Prop. 19, a measure that if approved by the voters will effectively legalize cannabis in America’s most important state politically and economically.
Former Drug Enforcement Administration chief and Republican congressman from Arkansas Asa Hutchinson has stepped up to argue in favor of the status quo and continuing into a ninth decade of Cannabis Prohibition.
The live interview is scheduled to broadcast Saturday morning (10/9/10) on C-Span TV, 9:15am – 10:00am (eastern…sorry west coasters!). Like most C-Span shows, the public is invited to ask questions or make short commentary.
This C-Span interview is likely the result of the Wall Street Journal publishing an unprecedented jointly signed letter earlier this week by every previous DEA administrator predictably calling for the Obama administration to actively oppose politically viable cannabis legalization voter initiatives in places like California (just the way they did).
Is the body politic (and the mainstream media that has so aptly aided and abetted these technocrats’ blatant disregard for democracy, science, compassion and common sense) really, really nervous about the cataclysmic blow that California voters are about to level on a self-evidently failed federal government public policy—another ‘war’ lost by government?
As one overexposed, former half governor is known for saying all too frequently: Youbetcha!
See you on the Groove Tube!
why do prohibitionists keep bringing up alaska in debates as somewhere that recriminalized pot and try to leave the impression that it was a failed experiment?
allen should always rebut with “Possession of 1 ounce or less in a residence or home holds no criminal penalty” thank you very much.
Just a heads-up, the program link in the blog post is dead. It can now be viewed here: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/234976
P.S. to 95
While we are on this band wagon to liberate the people from governmental stupidity and aggressive crap – just tell them to leave – nobody likes them anyway. In more clearly stated terms – “get the fuck out of my face, and take your little act down the road – Bozo.”
Kirk right on! I think if we had a longer notice we could have stacked the deck with questions directed at his agency and the main topic. I heard many responses which said we do not handle that therefore I will not answer it. So the questions have to be more direct. I think NORML should have a survey on the best questions to ask each government official opposing the legalization of marijuana.
Speaking of drug tests, how many are aware that in August 1997 the state of Georgia passed a law forcing their state legislators, that right I said state legislators, to take drug tests? The ones who voted against it refused to submit to drug tests and even took it to the supreme court. They decided drug tests are invasion of privacy and illegal in other ways too. I just don’t remember them all. Anyway, as long as they are the ones taking drug tests they are illegal but when our butts are on the line it’s ok.
Just to comment on what another person had to say and wasn’t sure where the information came from: they stated that “Someone (I don’t remember who) said insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. The U.S. Gov’t’s drug policy is insanity at its finest.”
That comment is used in from psychological handbooks in alcohol/drug/behavorial health clinical/hospital settings and in the Rooms of Narcotic Anonomyous/Alcoholics Anonomyous. Meaning that if you are an addict to a certain drug/drugs (alcohol included) you can’t keep trying the use of that drug or a different drug and get different results out of using drugs. That is the insanity of it. Once you are an addict, it lies dormant until the next time something wakes it up. Then the “beast” is unleashed again to create a cycle of usage and downward slide to rock bottom again.
I can see where the person has used the insanity part of this saying of the gov’ts illegal drug usage/distribution laws because they too have tried to keep the drugs and alcohol out of the hands of these types of persons with addictive personalities. Not just saying a user is an addict, but a seller can become an addict to $$$ just as a gambler. Their laws isn’t working from my experience alone, and my experience as a nurse working in an alcohol/drug/behavorial health setting. That is the insanity part of those laws.
Like I stated before, if the gov’t is going to use this as a medicinal type of drug. It just can’t be thrown out on the table written like the Propeganda 19 Bill. It is going to have to be thouroughly reviewed, re-written, and then thrown out there for the American people to vote on. The right stipulations put into the bill.
Farmed in the United States, somehow guarded in these farms to prevent underaged persons entering these farms to steal from the plants and farmer (that would boost the farmers and workers to farm/guard it), harvested (more jobs but seasonal), taxed, and sold like ciggerettes to a certain age group (puts money in the gov’ts economy). Then that’s where the fines and jailing comes in on the stores that sell it without carding the buyer, and if someone is buying for the underaged and caught then properly fined, jailed, and probated from the stipulations that is set on the law. I don’t see where one or two plants at home couldn’t be stipulated also in the bill, again as long as it is stipulated and not allowed to get out of controll. Which we already have the police and military helocopters that patrol to make sure this is not happening already.
PLease Get Out The Vote.
Please work hard the next few days so the rest of the country can follow your lead.
Please California get the truth out.
The whole World is watching.
Vote, you’ll feel better once you do.
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November 3, 2010
Congratulations! Prop. 19 passed. So, now that MJ is legal, please know that Asa Hutchinson, and the DEA and Pres. Obama, all the senators, and all of the congressmen and congresswomen WANT YO LEGALIZE MJ.
Every single one of them – Republicans, Democrats, Independents, everybody in the United States and Mexico wants MJ legalized.
But, again, the FED cannot legalize it (in public).
The FED has to prop-up old Asa in his sport shirt, sitting in front of the cameras like a blown up balloon repeating OLD (2007) opinions of the FED, because that’s DEA federal policy:
NO NEW-NEWS ON MJ from the FED, until the next head of the DEA has settled in. The new head of the DEA is a woman! Cool!
Yes, by all means, do keep a log of our next NORML questions when the MJ issue goes BEFORE the Congress and Senate, meeting in May 2011 for hearings on the medical benefits to science of Marijuana.
(What in the heck does Marijuana mean anyway? Who named it that? J. Edgar Hoover).
Let’s find a new name and put Hoover’s name down.
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Now that it’s November 3, lets review the DEA as an organization that we as citizens pay for.
First off, we have Pres. Obama to thank, who every American owes a debt of gratitude to. He’s been stuck with overseeing a couple wars back-to-back and hee’s the ONLY president that can “Tear down that wall of MJ bad-will”. Only a Democrat or Independent can do that.
Believe us, my Republican Party, we will not allow our party to support MJ or Abortion, for one reason only, the FED does not want to end-up paying for weed or abortions. The church has nothing to do with it. It’s about the money spending by the FED and my Republicans will not stand for it. That’s why were republicans. Get it now? 🙂
We few, here in North County, are the lead contacts for the Republican party in San Diego, California. We oversee (R) Brian Bilbray and advise him on what and what not to say about MJ and his instructions are now just to keep quiet and deal with immigration, which he happily accepted.
Brian Bilbray’s office informed me that the West Coast chapter of the Republican party is willing to abstain from negative responses to MJ, AS LONG AS NORML CAN CONTINUE ON THE SAME COURSE OF TRUTH ABOUT MJ. AND NOT GET INTO NAME CALLING.
THE REPUBLICAN ADVISE FOR NATIONAL MJ LEGALIZATION IS TO: “Stay on the same course we’re on now.”
The “winking republicans” of my political party (my brother in law was the energy czar for Grey Davis (through Edison Electric, L.A.), and he’s providing a CINDUIT of information from the Orange County Conservative Republican Party.
The OCCRP thinks Allen St. Pierre is presenting a calm analytic objective view to MJ, by letting the viewers make up their own minds (pretty much like you see on T.V. right now……. no commercial’s, just the facts).
NORML will pay money to run ads, once the Prohibbies launch the first T.V. salvo. NORML is ready, and their powder dry.
Nothing happens unless you make it happen! The great thing about that is – we can make anything happen. That means – you gotta vote.
I had to laugh at Hutchinson’s characterization of Amsterdam. When he mentioned that he went to the “distict” to see the coffeeshops, I can only guess that he meant the Red Light District and the City Center, as there are probably more coffeeshops concentrated in those areas than other districts. Was Mr. Hutchinson also looking at the girls in the windows during his “exploration”?
In truth, the coffeeshops are located in nearly every area of Amsterdam. Some of them are pretty “heavy” looking, but some look like quaint little book shops or real “coffee” shops. Some of them are quite antiseptic-looking–you wouldn’t know you were in an MJ shop but for the smell of the MJ.
Then he says someone came up to him and offered him exstasy. Yep, that’s really believable. He looks like someone who would get high.
It would have been nice if the moderator had bothered to ask Mr. St. Pierre a few more questions–the man was sitting right next to him! Seemed he was more interested in getting Hutchinson’s opinion on every question. Had I been in St. Pierre’s seat I probably would have been less polite and more sarcastic by the moderator’s lack of balance.
Tuesday Oct. 19, 2010
NOTE:
Todays report of the record MJ bust in Tijuana is A MEXICO-USA SCAM against PROP. 19.
Read the San Diego Union story. (The Union is heavily biased and now owned by a religion-backed conglomerate from the East Coast).
The news-story clearly states that “MEXICO has not announced who owned the weed.” 🙂
That’s because MEXICO and the DEA are working in concert.
Look at the bales they have on display. The different wrappings and the floor-arrangement of the bales indicate who the processor of the weed in MEXICO is.
The processors in MEXICO will get their weed back after the USA Nov. 2, 2010 elections.
These weed-bales were collected over the past few years for this October 19, 2010 election specifically.
Do you see those fellows that were captured and “roughed up”? Each one of those guys were paid $150,000. US to pose as lackeys.
Grow a brain. We wouldn’t smoke Mexico’s commercial rag-weed if you gave it to us. MEXICO can’t grow quality bud.
Many of those bales are owned by Flaco (not real name), a hotel owner and 35 year heroin-sniffer addict near on the mainland penn. who fronts plane loads of MJ to smugglers. Sometimes Flaco gets ripped off, sometimes not. The DEA knows all about Flaco and does nothing about it. Not in 35 years.
We will never see theses bales destroyed. Notice there was No Heroin or Cocaine or Meth bags. NOT EVEN ONE. 🙂
This weak display is what the Federal government had planned and staged for Prop. 19 and we knew it was coming.
As always, I’m open to DEA and FBI discussions about MJ and we’ll post the results right here.
The voting machines don’t have mental telepathy. They don’t know what you want unless you tell them. So! vote. Not voting is like pissin’ in the wind.
The video appears to have been taken down, is there anywhere else I can watch it?