It’s been a while since I have ranted here on GlobalGrind. Partly because I was extremely busy since returning to school to get my degree in Broadcast Journalism, and partly for being so completely repelled by the status quo of news, politics, and humanity. FOX really sucks. It’s all a bunch of talking heads yapping away cult-like skewed rhetoric that is being fed straight from the fax machine of the conglomerate that owns it into the teleprompter of the puppet who reads it out to us. It’s like a religion, with Fox being the Jonestown of it all.
An uninformed citizenry makes for a great mass of people to be easily controlled and enslaved. The citizens of this country are as much to blame for their lack of factual information and for the condition we are in, as are the networks that they depend on to get information from. PBS’s News Hour and Democracy Now are my sources for information, but based on their ratings, I know I’m part of a small percentage who watch public access television. Gone are the days of Walter Cronkite, Bob Woodward, Edward Murrow, etc.
Who is my generation’s “Most Trusted Man (or Women) in News”?
I apologize in advance for the above preamble, every semi-tirade deserves a good opening, but I digress.
My grievance here is with Obama’s current standing on the War on Drugs. In ’08, the President ran on a promise to respect states’ rights when it came to medical marijuana and vowed to not “[use] Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue.”
For those that don’t know, even though 16 states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana within their borders, it is still illegal federally and subject to federal law – i.e. imprisonment- for selling and using within those legal borders.
The hope was that under his administration, there would be an end to all the Bush-era raids on legal providers of medical marijuana. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has quietly unleashed a massive crackdown on medical marijuana, one that far exceeds anything the Bush administration ever did. The Feds are busting growers who are operating in full compliance with state laws and even serving the landlords of the dispensaries with assets forfeiture action, vowing to seize their property.
Most recently, the Californian dispensary Harborside, which Oakland local and state officials have stated “complie[d] with all local and state laws,” was under scrutiny for being, what federal officials say, “too big.” Americans for Safe Access, a group committed to legalizing marijuana, has estimated that under Obama’s administration, there have been more than 170 raids on pot dispensaries during his first three years. Obama is now on pace to exceed Bush’s record for medical-marijuana busts.
“There’s no question that Obama’s the worst president on medical marijuana,” says Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. “He’s gone from first to worst.”
Furthermore, he has expanded his attacks on medical marijuana businesses to include the IRS, which has penalized these businesses for selling an illegal drug by requiring them to pay federal taxes on gross income, not net income, a tax break that EVERY other business gets to enjoy.
Mr. President, what gives? This is not a pro-drugs rant in any way, shape, or form.
You want to go after illegal selling of marijuana, be my guest – though I honestly think there are bigger fish to fry in the world. But, do it in the states where such things are still illegal. Mind-boggled does not begin to describe just how f@*ked up this state and federal issue is, it’s like you are setting people up to purposely get imprisoned, a private correctional facility’s wet dream. To make matters worse, IT’S JUST WEED.
I still get high off cigarettes.
I can buy a completely legal semi-automatic weapon at a legal gun show and murder someone without one person stopping me, but yet we can’t get laws on the table for something that actually kills people.
The DOJ and the federal government need to start fighting a real fight and stop pretending that the War on Drugs is what’s killing America.
One last question, Mr. President, does this have anything to do with private prison industries, like Corrections Corporation of America, The GEO Group, or Cornell Companies, donating large sums of money and heavily lobbying federal legislations to ensure longer sentencing and continued severe punishment to ensure huge profits?
The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices, or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them. -Corrections Corporation of America 2005 Annual Report
~Danielle Abreu
