Nearly six years ago, Deputy Drug Czar Scott Burns mailed a two-page letter to every prosecutor in America urging them to target and “aggressively prosecute” marijuana violators, including first-time offenders.
Ask any seasoned drug policy reformer about one of the biggest hurdles to overcome in reforming cannabis laws and they’ll quickly acknowledge that to be the lack of both outreach to and participation from minorities (and women).
In the seminal legal case challenging the US government’s mis-scheduling of cannabis under the 1970 Controlled Substances Act (CSA), NORML vs. DEA, at a crucial junction in 1988, which would have readily ended most administrative law challenges, NORML, et al (Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics, Drug Policy Foundation, etc…) won the re-scheduling argument before Drug Enforcement Administration Law Judge Francis Young.
Rachel Hoffman is dead.
Rachel Hoffman, like many young adults, occasionally smoked marijuana.
But Rachel Hoffman is not dead as a result of smoking marijuana; she is dead as a result of marijuana prohibition
According to an investigative report by the New Orleans City Business newspaper, Orleans Parish District Attorney Keva Landrum-Johnson is routinely seeking five-to-20 years sentences for minor pot possession offenders.
Of course, I’m accustomed to reading “Reefer Madness” in the British press.
But I’m less accustomed to reading “Reefer Madness” when it comes from the mouth of an established medi-pot researcher like Dr. Wai Man Liu.
Naturally, the author ultimately fails to suggest any significant changes in US drug policy — such as legalizing cannabis for adults, or disbanding the DEA or the Drug Czar’s office — but, hey, it’s a start.
So if rats can deduce that whole cannabis works better as a medicine than a single synthesized molecule, what’s stopping our federal politicians and bureaucrats from reaching this same conclusion?