TEN ACRES of dissipation or a political celebration? Dissipation seemed preponderant at San Francisco’s civic center Saturday but, as a child of the 1950s, I’m still adjusting to new realities. I do remember, though, that the first gay parades occurred in an overall political context emphasizing all kinds of freedom, from economic to sexual. Anymore, especially this year, Gay Pride Day seems heavily corporate, heavily Democratic Party, heavily mainstream with Bradley Manning, a gay hero if there ever was one, purged as the parade’s grand marshall. He, Assange and now Snowden, are well outside the great Frisco Consensus as defined by Willie Brown, Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein. Like a great, gray poison fog the grasping talons of the Democrats enfold us all in their lethal embrace. The Republicans aren’t even good for a laugh anymore. I’d footed it up Market from Union Square with Castro Street as the goal. I wanted to see what the celebration was like only hours after the Defense of Marriage Act had fallen. I didn’t know that the Civic Center had become a weekend set aside, admission $5, to a mob scene of people with theirs buns hanging out. There’d been lots of citizens in odd costumes all over downtown, but there always are. And even at the official celebration area stretched out in front of City Hall, the revelers weren’t particularly gay — the whole sexual panoply seemed present — from the naked guys to nubile young women, and everything in between. I thought back to my deformative years when gays weren’t part of the national consciousness. I remember feeling sorry for a classmate who’d been arrested with an adult barber for “unnatural acts,” or whatever the phrase was then. It got into the newspapers, and only now can I fully imagine what it must have been like for that kid to have everyone pointing him out like some kind of secret freak. Gays weren’t gays yet, either, and the other prevalent pejorative, fag, was also unknown. Homo and homos was the term, as in, among high school wits, “How you homos doing today?” That kind of thing. I had a baseball coach who constantly grumbled that the frustrations presented by both the team and the game were “driving me fruit.” Or, “For Christ’s sake, you bums are enough to drive a guy fruit.” But I don’t remember anybody associating the phrases with homosexuality, although to those who constantly invoked it, the shrinks informed us, homosexuality must have been an omnipresent fear in these guys. In Marine Corps boot camp our DI routinely denounced Californians as “a bunch of damn queers sent to sabotage my Marine Corps.” We all laughed at that one, but not in front of him, though. He scared the shit out of all of us and often talked about how he’d like to choke us all to death. I remember wondering, If this nut is on my side, how bad can the Russians be? One day Sgt. Wells outdid himself, denouncing all of us as “syphilitic misfucks.” All this stuff seems ancient now, and very crazy. People nostalgic for the 50s weren’t there. Like most heteros, it wasn’t until those first gay marches in San Francisco that I realized how awful it had been for gay men and women. Now, if they can only free themselves from Pelosi, maybe all of us together can take on The Beast.
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ON-LINE STATEMENT OF THE DAY: A story about gay puppets receives a prominent position on SFGate’s website. This was to be expected now that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are over, Gitmo has been closed, the unemployed have become employed and Obama has locked up those responsible for the financial crisis.
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THE LATEST book on the dope biz, Humboldt County branch, is a ho-hummer called Humboldt: Life on America’s Marijuana Frontier. It’s written by a young woman, a very young woman judging from her prose, called Emily Brady.
Brady
“HUMBOLDT COUNTY was a beautiful place, there was no mistaking it, but it had become like a Hollywood set for Bob. It was like a facade, and behind the facade was a different story, one of trash, and meth, and familial dysfunction. Of course it wasn’t just Humboldt. Cops deal with the margins and extremes of society everywhere; the bowels, as Bob put it. His pessimism about the place was an occupational hazard, and he knew it…”
MS. BRADY describes the lives of four archetypal, drug-affected HumCo persons: a cop, a young woman raised in the pot counterculture; a career dope guy; and a pioneer back-to-the-lander the author calls ‘Mare’ but is clearly based on Mem Hill, a well-known eco-activist who lives in the Whitethorn area.
AS US RESIDENTS of the Emerald Triangle know, the pot business hasn’t been the harmless enterprise of the original hippies who brought it here for many years. The money involved has attracted lots of thugs, and lots of people raised by peace and love people who have also become thugs. The fairly recent addition of Mexico-based gangs to the dope business has torqued upwards the habitual violence that comes with the business. The love drug causes its own universe of misery.
THERE’S NOTHING in Ms. Brady’s book we don’t know, and nothing that Jonah Raskin’s Marijuanaland and Ray Raphael’s Cash Crop don’t do more comprehensively and a lot better. However, the portrait Ms. Brady draws of the young woman raised in the tumultuous circumstances romanticized by hippies as a “counter culture” certainly rings true as the author reveals the huge downside of the marijuana business as it plays out in the deceptive idyll of Humboldt County’s natural beauty.
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MANBEATER OF THE WEEK: Come on. No way!
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SITTER RESUPPLIED!
The dramatic resupply took place in the light of day despite the presence of two officers, who were preoccupied with a CHP vehicle stuck in the wetlands mud and a string of walkers near the site. In a tense moment, an officer or contractor attempted to move the second driver away from the machine that Will occupies, threatening the hold of the climber. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIxahiG1HIQ.)
Later that night, with floodlights on the wick drain drivers and CHP reinforcements on the ground, the resupply climber slipped away.
With new supplies, and able to contact supporters, Will is in good spirits.
Meanwhile, a medical team attempted to reach Will to check on his condition. They were turned back by CalTrans and referred to the CalTrans office, where they were told they could not enter the site.
Reportedly, the CHP decided Thursday that Will can receive one visit a day with food and water. Supporters are now organizing daily visits.
* * *
Daring Aerial Resupply Reaches Parched Crane-Sitter on Caltrans Tower
In an action combining daring, danger and comedy, Earth First! activists succeeded in putting a climber atop the second wick drain driver, and stringing a traverse rope to the crane-sitter who had been without food and water for a week. The bold action was carried out in broad daylight Wednesday afternoon. To get to the tower, the climber had to cross a wide belt of bare earth, guarded by 2 CHP vehicles. In spite of floodlights and guards, the climber delivered his life-saving supplies, and vanished into the night.
One week ago Little Lake Valley Defender and writer Will Parrish set up residence on a 2-ft wide plank halfway up one of the two 100’ towers. About 40 people entered the worksite Saturday evening to bring supplies to Parrish, who had run out of food and water and was facing cold wet weather. In a dramatic confrontation, CHP officers cut his supply rope. After a standoff of several hours, six people were arrested, including a mother and daughter who were grabbed while attempting to comply with CHP orders to leave.
Concern for Parrish’s safety after four days without food or water has been mounting, and a medical team sought permission to bring water. Communication was cut when his cell phone fell from the tower the first day. During Saturday’s resupply attempt, Parrish called down from his perch: “I’ll starve before I’ll let this machine install another wick drain.”
According to Parrish, who now has a phone, “I’ve just been resupplied by a real-life superhero. The machine operator started to lower the crane with him on it, and the CHP just watched.” Bystanders and press recorded the life-threatening incident on camera and video. Carrying supplies and gear, the climber scaled the tower, and attached his safety harness about 60’ up.
CHP officers were preoccupied with the effort to extract one of their vehicles from the deep mud near the site’s entrance, about 100 yards away. The officers summoned several passing protesters to help them, apparently taking them for passersby walking their dogs. The protesters helped free the car, which then got stuck again. The patrol cars next to the machine were apparently unmanned at the time.
Surveying the sea of mud left by three days of rain, long-time Willits resident Freddie Long observed: “This is a perfect illustration of why the wick drains are such a bad idea. This should be wetland, not a freeway.”
Bypass opponents say they will stop protesting when Caltrans stops work on the current version of the bypass, which they maintain is environmentally destructive and fiscally irresponsible. Sticker price for the 6 miles of road is $210 million dollars, not counting bond interest and cost overruns, or the $300 million dollar phase 2 of the project, which Caltrans says will be necessary to bring the current project up to safety standards.
Local citizens and civic organizations have long advocated a set of cheaper, less destructive alternatives. A meeting between opponents of the current project and Caltrans head Malcom Dougherty is set for July 9th.
* * *
Update on Will Parrish – Sitting in the Wick Drain Crane
Some small victories!
The latest news is that (as of Friday June 28th) Caltrans and the CHP have changed their policy. Will Parrish is now permitted to receive deliveries of food and water. The first delivery was made on Friday around 6:00 pm by Jessica Stull accompanied by Rachel Britten. My husband (Micheal Foley) made several large pesto hamburgers (at Will’s request) and the extras were offered to the CHP officers. We are still concerned about Will because he is being subjected to lots of heat and sun this weekend as he sits in the wick drain crane. He is still recovering from his ordeal of going without much food or water for four days and being wet and cold during the unseasonable rain storm. But, his spirits are high! Here are some ways you can help.
1. We are looking for volunteers to provide him with an evening meal/food and water delivery each day.
2. His spirits are always higher when he has visitors. So, please make some time to show your support with a personal visit.
For more information or to arrange a food delivery call Sara 707 216-5549 or 707 376-5202
Sara Grusky
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PLEASE JOIN US … For a Roadside Demonstration on Monday, July 1st, 9:30 am – 11:30 am. Sign holding and leafleting as people return from the Kate Wolf Festival
Meet at the truck scales on Hwy 101 north of the High School at 9:30 am. Make signs if you can as we are running low. Be creative, Be positive!
(Courtesy, SaveLittleLakeValley.org)
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FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES…
by Sara Grusky, Green Uprising Farm
I am writing this with a stubby pencil inside Mendocino County Jail where I am accompanied by five other brave “trespassers” including my daughter, Thea, Earth Firster Naomi Wagner and Matthew Caldwell. We spent the last two nights on a cold concrete floor under the bright florescent lights of the 6 ft by 6 ft holding cell. Now we are more comfortably housed as official inmates with cots to sleep on. Many people ask us why we continue doing this. Jail gives one lots of time for reflection and contemplation so here is my answer to the question.
Why I trespass. Civil disobedience is a fancy name for the idea, deeply rooted in American history and culture (beginning with the Boston Tea Party), that we have a right, even a responsibility and duty, to disobey laws that are unjust, destructive to people and other living things, and do not uphold our basic constitutional rights. Henry David Thoreau popularized the idea of civil disobedience but all of the major social movements in U.S. history including the movements for the abolition of slavery, the suffrage movement, civil rights, anti-war and environmental movements have used the tactic of civil disobedience. It is a time-honored tradition.
I believe it is a great honor and privilege to stand up for what you believe in. Most days, I cannot think of anything more important to do…..except maybe farming. (I do love to nurture plants and animals and make healthy food for my family and community!) Here is a short list of reasons why I trespass.
I trespass because I do not accept as legitimate Caltrans claim to “own” approximately 2,060 acres, one third of our precious Little Lake Valley (sixty acres are part of the Bypass footprint and 2,000 are part of the so-called Mitigation Plan). I believe this “land grab” is a great travesty. We need farmland, pastures, wetlands, forests, in part, because our future will require greater local economic self-sufficiency. Our children and grandchildren will face many challenges but I would like them to have a fighting chance to make a life and have a livelihood here in Little Lake Valley.
I trespass because I do not believe it was legitimate for Caltrans to dispossess local farmers, ranchers and homeowners in order to build an over-priced and unnecessary Bypass freeway.
I trespass because I cannot accept as legitimate Caltrans claim that they have the right to destroy and remove the forests, the soil, the creeks, the ancient oaks, the wetlands the pastureland and all the beautiful, delicate and intricate life forms that depend on these miracles of nature.
I trespass to protect the future for our small herd of goats. I know this sounds silly, but it is the honest truth. Watching our goat herd graze and browse teaches me many things about the plant life in our valley. I know the goats are concerned about the future of the creeks, the wetlands and the pasture lands because they understand how they are an interdependent part of the web of life in our valley.
I trespass because many people in this community have spent more than two decades trying to get their voices heard. Doors have been slammed again and again. Our political and judicial systems have failed to provide any viable recourse for those who seek a commonsense alternative route to Caltrans’ Bypass boondoggle. Unfortunately, putting our bodies on the line seems to be necessary, but we all know it should not have come to this.
I put my body on the line as an offering of hope for the future. I know there has to be a better way than building another asphalt and concrete freeway. Climate change is real and it is caused by burning fossil fuels – including the fuel we put in our cars. So many people in Willits and in Mendocino County have a long and proud tradition of seeking and implementing alternative solutions to our energy and transportation needs. It is time all stand together to stop this bypass freeway.
Why we trespassed on June 22, 2013
More than 35 community supporters gathered to bring food and water to Will Parrish who has been sitting in the crane of the wick drain machine since June 20th. The machine had been drilling “wicks” eighty feet deep into the wetlands to remove water and compact the soil in preparation for the fill dirt, asphalt and concrete that will follow in order to build a freeway over the top of the wetlands. Will’s brave presence on the crane of the machine has prevented it from working. The community supporters, myself and my daughter included, “trespassed” in an attempt to bring food and water to Will Parrish. The California Highway Patrol (CHP) blocked the delivery of supplies, cutting Will’s rope, and later ordering us to leave. As we were moving to leave I was grabbed and arrested. My daughter was very upset by what she perceived as my wrongful arrest and when she spoke up in my defense she was also arrested. Naomi Wagner also sat down to protest the arrests and was later arrested along with Matthew Caldwell.
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MIKE KALANTARIAN WRITES: Oh man, your Jared Huffman photo contest “winners” from last year were brilliant! You had us roaring with laughter this morning. That shot of corktop in the vines, Huffman’s happy kite, and all the rest of the entires were inspired.
Here was my entry:
Name: Mike Kalantarian, Hometown: Navarro
Photo: A view of poisoned hardwood trees, taken a few miles east of Comptche, along a steep headwater canyon of the Albion River. Mendocino Redwood Company poisons around 5,500 acres of Mendocino County forestland every year. More info:
http://mk.users.sonic.net/mrc/
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HERE IS Assemblyman Wes Chesbro’s submission from last year: “The epic grandeur of the political face”
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WITH MONDAY shaping up as the hottest day of the year, CalFire announces “A controlled burn at Lake Mendocino is now planned for Monday, the US Army Corps of Engineers announced. According to the USACE, it originally planned to conduct a live-fire training exercise with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection by burning the face of Coyote Valley Dam on June 24, but decided to postpone the event because of rain that day. The exercise is now scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. July 1, and “access to walking across the dam will not be permitted beginning at 4pm. Monday until the burning is completed.” Cal Fire also announced it will be surveying users of the Jackson Demonstration State Forest, and the group hired to do the survey will provide a overview of the “survey design and methodology” at a meeting next week that members of the public are encouraged to attend. According to CalFire, the recreation user survey will be “conducted on random dates and locations within JDSF throughout the summer and early fall,” and the results of the survey will “help guide the development of a recreation plan.” The JDSF Recreation Task Force meeting will be held at the Camp One Day Use area on Wednesday, July 3, at 2 p.m. For more information, call the Cal Fire Fort Bragg office at 707-964-5674.”
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IT’S TIRESOME to hear Sonoma County Supervisor Efren Carrillo woof repeatedly about the environmental crimes of Sonoma County winemaker-outlaw Paul Hobbs who pops up periodically with yet another blatant violation of SoCo’s weak ag and river protection rules (which, weak as they are, are more than Mendocino County has: None). Carrillo “vowed” Friday that Hobbs’ latest violation — illegally cutting down acres of streamside vegetation — “would not be ignored.” “I will tell you that the full force of the law is going to be applied in this matter,” Carrillo huffed. Every time Hobbs is caught breaking a rule, Supervisor Carrillo comes out with a tough sounding quote. A couple of years ago after a prior flagrant violation Carrillo said, “One need not wait for a legal determination before expressing outrage at the insensitivity and environmental depravity of this conduct.” And after an earlier violation, “I don’t understand how someone can show such blatant disregard not only to the process but also to our resources and to their fellow grape growers,” none of whom are ever quoted with their own complaints — probably because they’re not quite as flagrant as Hobbs so Hobbs can be the convenient “bad apple.” In recent years Hobbs has been caught illegally clearcutting forests and orchards for vineyards and violating promises made to neighbors. But no enforcement action has ever been taken. His critics say he’s happy to pay the small fines which could be imposed if necessary. But so far the SoCo District Attorney’s office has done nothing more than say, “We’re looking into it.” (The local angle: Hobbs buys Mendo pinot grapes and makes them into a tasty brand of wine called “Crossbarn,” which is just one letter from “Crossburn.”)
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METH FLOODS US BORDER CROSSING
By Elliot Spagat
SAN DIEGO—Children walk across the US-Mexico border with crystal methamphetamine strapped to their backs or concealed between notebook pages. Motorists disguise liquid meth in tequila bottles, windshield washer containers and gas tanks.
The smuggling of the drug at land border crossings has jumped in recent years but especially at San Diego’s San Ysidro port of entry, which accounted for more than 40 percent of seizures in fiscal year 2012. That’s more than three times the second-highest—five miles east—and more than five times the third-highest, in Nogales, Ariz.
The spike reflects a shift in production to Mexico after a US crackdown on domestic labs and the Sinaloa cartel’s new hold on the prized Tijuana-San Diego smuggling corridor.
A turf war that gripped Tijuana a few years ago with beheadings and daytime shootouts ended with the cartel coming out on top. The drugs, meanwhile, continue flowing through San Ysidro, the Western hemisphere’s busiest land border crossing with an average of 40,000 cars and 25,000 pedestrians entering daily.
“This is the gem for traffickers,” said Gary Hill, assistant special agent in charge of the US Drug Enforcement Administration in San Diego. “It’s the greatest place for these guys to cross because there are so many opportunities.”
Customs and Border Protection officers seized 5,566 pounds of methamphetamine at San Ysidro in the 2012 fiscal year, more than double two years earlier, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations unit. On the entire border, inspectors seized 13,195 pounds, also more than double.
From October 2012 through March, seizures totaled 2,169 pounds at San Ysidro and 1,730 pounds at Otay Mesa, giving San Diego 61 percent of the 6,364 pounds seized at Mexican border crossings. Much of the rest was found in Laredo, Texas; Nogales; and Calexico, Calif.
San Ysidro—unlike other busy border crossings—blends into a sprawl of 18 million people that includes Los Angeles, one of the nation’s top distribution hubs. By contrast, El Paso is more than 600 miles from Dallas on a lonely highway with Border Patrol checkpoints.
Rush-hour comes weekday mornings, with thousands of motorists clogging Tijuana streets to approach 24 US-bound inspection lanes on their way to school or work. Vendors weave between cars, hawking cappuccinos, burritos, newspapers and trinkets.
A $732 million expansion that has created even longer delays may offer an extra incentive for smugglers who bet that inspectors will move people quickly to avoid criticism for hampering commerce and travel, said Joe Garcia, assistant special agent in charge of ICE investigations in San Diego.
Children are caught with methamphetamine strapped to their bodies several times a week—an “alarming increase,” according to Garcia. They are typically paid $50 to $200 for each trip, carrying 3 pounds on average.
Drivers, who collect up to $2,000 per trip, conceal methamphetamine in bumpers, batteries, radiators and almost any other crevice imaginable. Packaging is smothered with mustard, baby powder and laundry detergent to fool drug-sniffing dogs.
Crystals are increasingly dissolved in water, especially during the last year, making the drug more difficult to detect in giant X-ray scanners that inspectors order some motorists to drive through. The water is later boiled and often mixed with acetone, a combustible fluid used in paints that yields clear shards of methamphetamine favored by users. The drug often remains in liquid form until reaching its final distribution hub.
The government has expanded X-ray inspections of cars at the border in recent years, but increased production in Mexico and the Sinaloa cartel’s presence are driving the seizures, Garcia said. “This is a new corridor for them,” he said.
The US government shut large methamphetamine labs during the last decade as it introduced sharp limits on chemicals used to make the drug, causing production to shift to Mexico.
The US State Department said in March that the Mexican government seized 958 labs under former President Felipe Calderon from 2006 to 2012, compared with 145 under the previous administration. Mexico seized 267 labs last year, up from 227 in 2011.
As production moved to central Mexico, the Sinaloa cartel found opportunity in Tijuana in 2008 when it backed a breakaway faction of the Arellano Felix clan, named for a family that controlled the border smuggling route for two decades. Sinaloa, led by Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman, had long dominated nearby in eastern California and Arizona.
Tijuana registered 844 murders in 2008 in a turf war that horrified residents with castrated bodies hanging from bridges. After the Sinaloa cartel prevailed, the Mexican border city of more than 2 million people returned to relative calm, with 332 murders last year and almost no public displays of brutality.
Alfonzo “Achilles” Arzate and his younger brother Rene, known as “The Frog,” have emerged as top Sinaloa operatives in Tijuana—the former known as the brains and the latter as the brawn. The elder Arzate has been mentioned on wire intercepts for drug deals as far as Chicago, Hill said.
He appears to have gained favor with the Sinaloa cartel brass after another cartel operative raided one of his warehouses in October 2010, leading to a shootout and the government seizing 134 tons of marijuana.
Methamphetamine has also turned into a scourge throughout Tijuana, becoming the most common drug offense for dealers and consumers in the last five years, said Miguel Angel Guerrero, coordinator of the Baja California state attorney general’s organized crime unit.
“It has increased a lot in the city because it’s cheaper than cocaine, even cheaper than marijuana,” he said.
Disputes among street dealers lead to spurts of violence in Tijuana, said Guerrero, including April’s murder tally of 56 bodies. But the killings pale in numbers and brutality compared to the dark days of 2008 and 2009. While president, Calderon hailed Tijuana as a success story in his war on cartels.
“The Sinaloa cartel, their presence here has been strong enough to the point that no one is pushing back,” said the DEA’s Hill. “They just simply want to focus on making money and moving the dope across.”
(Courtesy, the Associated Press)
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MARIJUANA’S MARCH TOWARD MAINSTREAM CONFOUNDS FEDS
Nancy Benac & Alicia A. Caldwell
It took 50 years for American attitudes about marijuana to zigzag from the paranoia of “Reefer Madness” to the excesses of Woodstock back to the hard line of “Just Say No.”
The next 25 years took the nation from Bill Clinton, who famously “didn’t inhale,” to Barack Obama, who most emphatically did.
And now, in just a few short years, public opinion has moved so dramatically toward general acceptance that even those who champion legalization are surprised at how quickly attitudes are changing and states are moving to approve the drug — for medical use and just for fun.
It is a moment in America that is rife with contradictions:
• People are looking more kindly on marijuana even as science reveals more about the drug’s potential dangers, particularly for young people.
• States are giving the green light to the drug in direct defiance of a federal prohibition on its use.
• Exploration of the potential medical benefit is limited by high federal hurdles to research.
Washington policymakers seem reluctant to deal with any of it.
Richard Bonnie, a University of Virginia law professor who worked for a national commission that recommended decriminalizing marijuana in 1972, sees the public taking a big leap from prohibition to a more laissez-faire approach without full deliberation.
“It’s a remarkable story historically,” he says. “But as a matter of public policy, it’s a little worrisome. It’s intriguing, it’s interesting, it’s good that liberalization is occurring, but it is a little worrisome.”
More than a little worrisome to those in the anti-drug movement.
“We’re on this hundred-mile-an-hour freight train to legalizing a third addictive substance,” says Kevin Sabet, a former drug policy adviser in the Obama administration, lumping marijuana with tobacco and alcohol.
Legalization strategist Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, likes the direction the marijuana smoke is wafting. But he knows his side has considerable work yet to do.
“I’m constantly reminding my allies that marijuana is not going to legalize itself,” he says.
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By the numbers:
Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have legalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes since California voters made the first move in 1996. Voters in Colorado and Washington state took the next step last year and approved pot for recreational use. Alaska is likely to vote on the same question in 2014, and a few other states are expected to put recreational use on the ballot in 2016.
Nearly half of adults have tried marijuana, 12 percent of them in the past year, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. More teenagers now say they smoke marijuana than ordinary cigarettes.
52% of adults favor legalizing marijuana, up 11 percentage points just since 2010, according to Pew. Sixty percent think Washington shouldn’t enforce federal laws against marijuana in states that have approved its use. Seventy-two percent think government efforts to enforce marijuana laws cost more than they’re worth.
“By Election Day 2016, we expect to see at least seven states where marijuana is legal and being regulated like alcohol,” says Mason Tvert, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, a national legalization group.
* * *
Where California led the charge on medical marijuana, the next chapter in this story is being written in Colorado and Washington state.
Policymakers there are struggling with all sorts of sticky issues revolving around one central question: How do you legally regulate the production, distribution, sale and use of marijuana for recreational purposes when federal law bans all of the above?
How do you tax it? What quality control standards do you set? How do you protect children while giving grown-ups the go-ahead to light up? What about driving under the influence? Can growers take business tax deductions? Who can grow pot, and how much? Where can you use it? Can cities opt out? Can workers be fired for smoking marijuana when they’re off duty? What about taking pot out of state? The list goes on.
The overarching question has big national implications. How do you do all of this without inviting the wrath of the federal government, which has been largely silent so far on how it will respond to a gaping conflict between US and state law?
The Justice Department began reviewing the matter after last November’s election and repeatedly has promised to respond soon. But seven months later, states still are on their own, left to parse every passing comment from the department and President Obama.
In December, Obama said in an interview that “it does not make sense, from a prioritization point of view, for us to focus on recreational drug users in a state that has already said that under state law that’s legal.”
In April, Attorney General Eric Holder said to Congress, “We are certainly going to enforce federal law. … When it comes to these marijuana initiatives, I think among the kinds of things we will have to consider is the impact on children.” He also mentioned violence related to drug trafficking and organized crime.
In May, Obama told reporters: “I honestly do not believe that legalizing drugs is the answer. But I do believe that a comprehensive approach — not just law enforcement, but prevention and education and treatment — that’s what we have to do.”
Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat who favors legalization, predicts Washington will take a hands-off approach, based on Obama’s comments about setting law enforcement priorities.
“We would like to see that in writing,” Polis says. “But we believe, given the verbal assurances of the president, that we are moving forward in Colorado and Washington in implementing the will of the voters.”
The federal government has taken a similar approach toward users in states that have approved marijuana for medical use. It doesn’t go after pot-smoking cancer patients or grandmas with glaucoma. But it also has warned that people who are in the business of growing, selling and distributing marijuana on a large scale are subject to potential prosecution for violations of the Controlled Substances Act — even in states that have legalized medical use.
Federal agents in recent years have raided storefront dispensaries in California and Washington, seizing cash and pot. In April, the Justice Department targeted 63 dispensaries in Santa Ana, Calif., and filed three asset forfeiture lawsuits against properties housing seven pot shops. Prosecutors also sent letters to property owners and operators of 56 other marijuana dispensaries warning that they could face similar lawsuits.
University of Denver law professor Sam Kamin says if the administration doesn’t act soon to sort out the federal-state conflict, it may be too late to do much.
“At some point, it becomes so prevalent and so many citizens will be engaged in it that it’s hard to recriminalize something that’s become commonplace,” he says.
* * *
There’s a political calculus for the president, or any other politician, in all of this.
Younger people, who tend to vote more Democratic, are more supportive of legalizing marijuana, as are people in the West, where the libertarian streak runs strong. In Colorado, for example, last November more people voted for legalized pot (55 percent) than voted for Obama (51 percent), which could help explain why the president was silent on marijuana before the election.
“We’re going to get a cultural divide here pretty quickly,” says Greg Strimple, a Republican pollster based in Boise, Idaho, who predicts Obama will duck the issue as long as possible.
Despite increasing public acceptance of marijuana, and growing interest in its potential therapeutic uses, politicians know there are complications that could come with commercializing an addictive substance, some of them already evident in medical marijuana states. Opponents of pot are particularly worried that legalization will result in increased adolescent use as young people’s estimations of the drug’s dangers decline.
“There’s no real win on this from a political perspective,” says Sabet. “Do you want to be the president that stops a popular cause, especially a cause that’s popular within your own party? Or do you want to be the president that enables youth drug use that will have ramifications down the road?”
Marijuana legalization advocates offer politicians a rosier scenario, in which legitimate pot businesses eager to keep their operating licenses make sure not to sell to minors.
“Having a regulated system is the only way to ensure that we’re not ceding control of this popular substance to the criminal market and to black marketeers,” says Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, a trade group for legal pot businesses in the US.
See Change Research, which analyzes the marijuana business, has estimated the national market for medical marijuana alone at $1.7 billion for 2011 and has projected it could reach $8.9 billion in five years. Overall, marijuana users spend tens of billions of dollars a year on pot, experts believe.
Ultimately, marijuana advocates say, it’s Congress that needs to budge, aligning federal laws with those of states moving to legalization. But that doesn’t appear likely anytime soon.
The administration appears uncertain how to proceed.
“The executive branch is in a pickle,” Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., said at a recent news conference outside the Capitol with pot growers visiting town to lobby for changes. “Twenty-one states have a different view of the use of marijuana than the laws on the books for the federal government.”
* * *
While the federal government hunkers down, Colorado and Washington state are moving forward on their own.
Colorado’s governor in May signed a set of bills to regulate legal use of the drug, and the state’s November ballot will ask voters to approve special sales and excise taxes on pot. In Washington state, the Liquor Control Board is drawing up rules covering everything from how plants will be grown to how many stores will be allowed. It expects to issue licenses for growers and processors in December, and impose 25 percent taxes three times over — when pot is grown, processed and sold to consumers.
“What we’re beginning to see is the unraveling of the criminal approach to marijuana policy,” says Tim Lynch, director of the libertarian Cato Institute‘s Project on Criminal Justice. But, Lynch adds, “the next few years are going to be messy. There are going to be policy battles” as states work to bring a black market industry into the sunshine, and Washington wrestles with how to respond.
Already, a federal judge has struck down a Colorado requirement that pot magazines such as High Times be kept behind store counters, like pornography.
Marijuana advocates in Washington state, where officials have projected the legal pot market could bring the state a half-billion a year in revenue, are complaining that state regulators are still banning sales of hash or hash oil, a marijuana extract.
Pot growers in medical marijuana states are chafing at federal laws that deny them access to the banking system, tax deductions and other opportunities that other businesses take for granted. Many dispensaries are forced to operate on a cash-only basis, which can be an invitation to organized crime.
It’s already legal for adults in Colorado and Washington to light up at will, as long as they do so in private.
That creates all kinds of new challenges for law enforcement.
Pat Slack, a commander with the Snohomish County Regional Drug Taskforce in Washington state, said local police are receiving calls about smokers flouting regulations against lighting up in public. In at least one instance, Slack said, that included a complaint about a smoker whose haze was wafting over a backyard fence and into the middle of a child’s birthday party. But with many other problems confronting local officers, scofflaws are largely being ignored.
“There’s not much we can do to help,” Slack says. “A lot of people have to get accustomed to what the change is.”
In Colorado, Tom Gorman, director of the federal Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Taskforce, takes a tougher stance on his state’s decision to legalize pot.
“This is against the law, I don’t care what Colorado says,” Gorman said. “It puts us in a position, where you book a guy or gal and they have marijuana, do you give it back? Do you destroy it? What in effect I am doing by giving it back is I am committing a felony. If the court orders me to return it, the court is giving me an illegal order.”
More than 30 pot growers and distributors, going all-out to present a buttoned-down image in suits and sensible pumps rather than ponytails and weed T-shirts, spent two days on Capitol Hill in June lobbying for equal treatment under tax and banking laws and seeking an end to federal property seizures.
“It’s truly unfortunate that the Justice Department can’t find a way to respect the will of the people,” says Sean Luse of the 13-year-old Berkeley Patients Group in California, a multimillion-dollar pot collective whose landlord is facing the threat of property forfeiture.
* * *
As Colorado and Washington state press on, California’s experience with medical marijuana offers a window into potential pitfalls that can come with wider availability of pot.
Dispensaries for medical marijuana have proliferated in the state. Regulation has been lax, leading some overwhelmed communities to complain about too-easy access from illegal storefront pot shops and related problems such as loitering and unsavory characters. That prompted cities around the state to say enough already and ban dispensaries. Pot advocates sued.
In May, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously that cities and counties can ban medical marijuana dispensaries. A few weeks later, Los Angeles voters approved a ballot measure that limits the number of pot shops in the city to 135, down from an estimated high of about 1,000. By contrast, whitepages.com lists 112 Starbucks in the city.
This isn’t full-scale buyer’s remorse, but more a course correction before the inevitable next push to full-on legalization in the state.
Baker Montgomery, a member of the Eagle Rock neighborhood council in Los Angeles, where pot shops were prevalent, said May’s vote to limit the number of shops was all about ridding the city of illicit dispensaries.
“They’re just not following what small amounts of rules there are on the books,” Montgomery said.
In 2010, California voters opted against legalizing marijuana for recreational use, drawing the line at medical use.
But Jeffrey Dunn, a Southern California attorney who represented cities in the Supreme Court case, says that in reality the state’s dispensaries have been operating so loosely that already “it’s really all-access.”
At the Venice Beach Care Center, one of the dispensaries that will be allowed to stay open in Los Angeles, founding director Brennan Thicke believes there still is widespread support for medical marijuana in California. But he says the state isn’t ready for more just yet.
“We have to get (medical) right first,” Thicke said.
Dunn doubts that’s possible.
“What we’ve learned is, it is very difficult if not impossible to regulate these facilities,” he said.
* * *
Other states, Colorado among them, have had their own bumps in the road with medical marijuana.
A Denver-area hospital, for example, saw children getting sick after eating treats and other foods made with marijuana in the two years after a 2009 federal policy change led to a surge in medical marijuana use, according to a study in JAMA Pediatrics in May. In the preceding four years, the hospital had no such cases.
The Colorado Education Department reported a sharp rise in drug-related suspensions and expulsions after medical marijuana took off. An audit of the state’s medical marijuana system found the state had failed to adequately track the growth and distribution of pot or to fully check out the backgrounds of pot dealers.
“What we’re doing is not working,” says Dr. Christian Thurstone, a psychiatrist whose Denver youth substance abuse treatment center has seen referrals for marijuana double since September. In addition, he sees young people becoming increasingly reluctant to be treated, arguing that it can’t be bad for them if it’s legal.
Yet Daniel Rees, a researcher at the University of Colorado Denver, analyzed data from 16 states that have approved medical marijuana and found no evidence that legalization had increased pot use among high school students.
In looking at young people, Rees concludes: “Should we be worried that marijuana use nationally is going up? Yes. Is legalization of medical marijuana the culprit? No.”
* * *
Growing support for legalization doesn’t mean everybody wants to light up: Barely one in 10 Americans used pot in the past year.
Those who do want to see marijuana legalized range from libertarians who oppose much government intervention to people who want to see an activist government aggressively regulate marijuana production and sales.
Safer-than-alcohol was “the message that won the day” with voters in Colorado, says Tvert.
For others, money talks: Why let drug cartels rake in untaxed profits when a cut of that money could go into government coffers?
There are other threads in the growing acceptance of pot.
People think it’s not as dangerous as once believed; some reflect back on what they see as their own harmless experience in their youth. They worry about high school kids getting an arrest record that will haunt them for life. They see racial inequity in the way marijuana laws are enforced. They’re weary of the “war on drugs,” and want law enforcement to focus on other areas.
“I don’t plan to use marijuana, but it just seemed we waste a lot of time and energy trying to enforce something when there are other things we should be focused on,” says Sherri Georges, who works at a Colorado Springs, Colo., saddle shop. “I think that alcohol is a way bigger problem than marijuana, especially for kids.”
Opponents have retorts at the ready.
They point to a 2012 study finding that regular use of marijuana during teen years can lead to a long-term drop in IQ, and a different study indicating marijuana use can induce and exacerbate psychotic illness in susceptible people. They question the idea that regulating pot will bring in big money, saying revenue estimates are grossly exaggerated.
They counter the claim that prisons are bulging with people convicted of simple possession by citing federal statistics showing only a small percentage of federal and state inmates are behind bars for that alone. Slack said the vast majority of people jailed for marijuana possession were originally charged with dealing drugs and accepted plea bargains for possession. The average possession charge for those in jail is 115 pounds, Slack says, which he calls enough for “personal use for a small city.”
Over and over, marijuana opponents warn that baby boomers who are drawing on their own innocuous experiences with pot are overlooking the much higher potency of the marijuana now in circulation.
In 2009, concentrations of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in pot, averaged close to 10 percent in marijuana, compared with about 4 percent in the 1980s, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. An estimated 9 percent of people who try marijuana eventually become addicted, and the numbers are higher for those who start using pot when they are young. That’s less than the addiction rates for nicotine or alcohol, but still significant.
“If marijuana legalization was about my old buddies at Berkeley smoking in People’s Park once a week I don’t think many of us would care that much,” says Sabet, who helped to found Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a group that opposes legalization. “But it’s not about that. It’s really about creating a new industry that’s going to target kids and target minorities and our vulnerable populations just like our legal industries do today.”
* * *
So how bad, or good, is pot?
There are studies that set off medical alarm bells but also studies that support the safer-than-alcohol crowd and suggest promising therapeutic uses.
J. Michael Bostwick, a psychiatrist at the Mayo Clinic, set out to sort through more than 100 sometimes conflicting studies after his teenage son became addicted to pot. In a 22-page article for Mayo Clinic Proceedings in 2012, he laid out the contradictions in US policy and declared that “little about cannabis is straightforward.”
“Anybody can find data to support almost any position,” Bostwick says now.
For all of the talk that smoking pot is no big deal, Bostwick says, he determined that “it was a very big deal. There were addiction issues. There were psychosis issues. But there was also this very large body of literature suggesting that it could potentially have very valuable pharmaceutical applications but the research was stymied” by federal barriers.
Marijuana is a Schedule I drug under 1970 law, meaning the government deems it to have “no currently accepted medical use” and a “high potential for abuse.” The only federally authorized source of marijuana for research is grown at the University of Mississippi, and the government tightly regulates its use. The National Institute on Drug Abuse says plenty of work with cannabis is ongoing, but Bostwick says federal restrictions have caused a “near-cessation of scientific research.”
The American Medical Association opposes legalizing pot, calling it a “dangerous drug” and a public health concern. But it also is urging the government to review marijuana’s status as a Schedule 1 drug in the interest of promoting more research.
“The evidence is pretty clear that in 1970 the decision to make the drug illegal, or put it on Schedule I, was a political decision,” says Bostwick. “And it seems pretty obvious in 2013 that states, making their decisions the way they are, are making political decisions. Science is not present in either situation to the degree that it needs to be.”
The National Institute on Drug Abuse’s director, Dr. Nora Volkow, says that for all the potential dangers of marijuana, “cannabinoids are just amazing compounds, and understanding how to use them properly could be actually very beneficial therapeutically.” But she worries that legalizing pot will result in increased use of marijuana by young people, and impair their brain development.
“You cannot mess around with the cognitive capacity of your young people because you are going to rely on them,” she says. “Think about it: Do you want a nation where your young people are stoned?”
* * *
As state after state moves toward a more liberal approach to marijuana, the turnaround is drawing comparisons to shifting attitudes on gay marriage, for which polls find rapidly growing acceptance, especially among younger voters. That could point toward durable majority support as this population ages. Gay marriage is now legal in 12 states and Washington, D.C.
On marijuana, “we’re having a hard time almost believing how fast public opinion is changing in our direction,” says Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance.
But William Galston and E.J. Dionne, who co-wrote a paper on the new politics of marijuana for the Brookings Institution, believe marijuana legalization hasn’t achieved a deep enough level of support to suggest a tipping point, with attitudes toward legalization marked by ambivalence and uncertainty.
“Compared with attitudes toward same-sex marriage, support for marijuana legalization is much less driven by moral conviction and much more by the belief that it is not a moral issue at all,” they wrote.
No one expects Congress to change federal law anytime soon.
Partisans on both sides think people in other states will keep a close eye on the precedent-setting experiment underway in Colorado and Washington as they decide whether to give the green light to marijuana elsewhere.
“It will happen very suddenly,” predicts the Cato Institute’s Lynch. “In 10-15 years, it will be hard to find a politician who will say they were ever against legalization.”
Sabet worries that things will move so fast that the negative effects of legalization won’t yet be fully apparent when other states start giving the go-ahead to pot. He’s hoping for a different outcome.
“I actually think that this is going to wake a lot of people up who might have looked the other way during the medical marijuana debate,” he says. “In many ways, it actually might be the catalyst to turn things around.”
Past predictions on pot have been wildly off-base, in both directions.
The 1972 commission that recommended decriminalizing marijuana speculated pot might be nothing more than a fad.
Then there’s “Reefer Madness,” the 1936 propaganda movie that pot fans rediscovered and turned into a cult classic in the 1970s. It labeled pot “The Real Public Enemy Number One!”
The movie spins a tale of dire consequences “leading finally to acts of shocking violence … ending often in incurable insanity.”
(Courtesy, the Associated Press.)
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WORLD’S MOST EVIL AND LAWLESS INSTITUTION? THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT by Fred Branfman, June 26, 2013
Executive Branch leaders have killed, wounded and made homeless well over 20 million human beings in the last 50 years, mostly civilians.
Introduction: America’s Secret Shame
America has a secret. It is not discussed in polite company or at the dinner tables of the powerful, rich and famous.
Parents do not teach it to their children. Best-selling authors do not write about it. Politicians and government officials ignore it. Intellectuals avoid it. High school and college textbooks do not refer to it. TV pundits do not comment on it. Teachers do not teach it. Journalists from the nation’s most highly regarded TV news shows, newspapers and magazines, do not report it. Columnists do not opine about it. Editorial writers do not editorialize about it. Religious leaders do not sermonize about it. Think tanks and professors do not study it. Lawyers do not litigate it and judges do not rule on it.
The few who do not keep this secret, who try to break through to their fellow citizens about it, are marginalized and ignored by society at large.
To begin to understand the magnitude of this secret, imagine that you get into your car in New York City, and set out for a drive south, staying overnight in Washington DC, a four-hour drive. As you leave, you look out your window to the left and see a row of bodies, laid end to end, running alongside you all the way to DC.
You spend the night there, and set out early the next morning for Charleston, South Carolina, an 11-hour drive. Again, looking out your window, you see the line of bodies continues, hour after hour. You are struck that most are middle-aged or older men and women, younger women, or children. You arrive in Charleston, check into your hotel, have a good meal, and get up early the next morning to drive to Miami, another 12-hour drive. And once again, hour after hour, the line of bodies continues, all the way to your destination.
If you can imagine such a drive, or these bodies piled one on top of each other reaching 120 miles into the sky, you can begin to get a feeling for former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara’s mid-range estimate of 1.2 million civilians killed by U.S. firepower in Vietnam. (The U.S. Senate Refugee Committee estimated 430,000 civilian dead at the end of the war. Later estimates as more information has become available, e.g. by Nick Turse, author of Kill Anything That Moves, put the number as high as 2 million.)
And the secret that is never discussed is far larger. To the 430,000 to 2 million civilians killed in Vietnam must be added those killed in Laos, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq and many other nations (see below), all those wounded and maimed for life, and the many millions more forced to leave villages in which their families had lived for centuries to become penniless refugees. All told, U.S. Executive Branch leaders – Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals – have killed wounded and made homeless well over 20 million human beings in the last 50 years, mostly civilians.
U.S. leaders have never acknowledged their responsibility for ruining