cannabisnews.com: Enforcement or Harassment?





Enforcement or Harassment?
Posted by CN Staff on September 08, 2002 at 16:58:10 PT
Editorial
Source: San Jose Mercury News 
The one-acre marijuana farm that Valerie and Michael Corral ran in Santa Cruz County was exactly what California voters had in mind in 1996, when they approved Proposition 215 and made it legal to use marijuana to treat serious medical problems.The Corrals worked closely with county law enforcement to make sure their operation followed state law and existed only to serve patients who needed cannabis to ease the symptoms of AIDS, cancer and other ailments.
The farm was no secret -- in fact, the Corrals have been in the forefront of the medical marijuana movement for many years. So it came as a nasty surprise when about a dozen U.S. Drug Enforcement Agents raided the farm near Davenport Thursday. They hauled off 100 marijuana plants, along with the Corrals. But the U.S. Attorney's Office declined to file charges against them. The Corrals are back home -- but not the plants.The DEA has been cracking down on medical marijuana distributors lately, bolstered by the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to allow ``medical necessity'' as a defense against federal drug charges. The California Supreme Court responded by upholding the right of seriously ill Californians to use marijuana with a doctor's approval. The Corrals became the latest victims of this conflict between federal law based on outmoded thinking, and state law bolstered by research supporting the use of marijuana in treating epilepsy, glaucoma and other diseases.Federal law generally supersedes state law. But when federal prosecutors refuse to press charges, it's legitimate to wonder whether ``drug enforcement'' has descended to the level of harassment. There are plenty of meth labs cooking away in the Central Valley if the DEA were truly concerned about dangerous drugs.The people have spoken -- not only in California, but in eight other states that have legalized medical marijuana. The feds haven't listened. Note: Raid on Legal Medical Marijuana Farm Puts Feds at Odds with Prop 215.Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)Published: September 8, 2002Copyright: 2002 San Jose Mercury NewsContact: letters sjmercury.comWebsite: http://www.sjmercury.com/ Related Articles & Web Site:WAMMhttp://www.wamm.org/Agents Seize Couple, Plantshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14037.shtmlThe DEA in Chains: Bound by a Patient in a Chairhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14036.shtmlDEA Raid Sparks Medical Marijuana Protests http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14023.shtml
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Comment #6 posted by llittle11 on September 11, 2002 at 13:40:11 PT:
Reprehensible Radical Rightwing Republicans.
I was incredulous and enraged to hear of the “Gestapo” techniques being used in place of the friendly knock on the door. The DEA has raided a marijuana farm. When I hear RAID, I think of commando raids, as in the second world war, or an insecticide associated with death, or people smashing down the front door with Uzi guns at ready like Eliot Ness just to arrest two people who were watering their plants. The perfectly legal arms found at the address were less than the expected grenade attack and cannon fire that required such an overwhelming force that took part in the raid, just to put handcuffs on the growers as if they just caught Al Capone. 
   I would have been terrified if someone came smashing down my door and would have made a desperate leap for a weapon to protect my family except I don’t have one, but the only thing Asa Hutchison found was two unarmed and unresisting, couple whose rights are no longer rights, thanks to John Ashcroft and the Bush administration. I’m not sure where I read it, but these humanitarian growers can expect up to TEN YEARS IN PRISON.  Ten years! Compare that with the future of the captured Al Quida prisoners John Ashcroft has in his private concentration camp in Cuba. 
   Pot growers are punished more harshly than those who fly airplanes into our buildings.  We must have equal justice for all.   We must look at the big picture and see what the product is as a result of the efforts of the drug war, and try to understand why the priorities using the nations’ precious resources to go after the helpless targets of the sick and dying in California and The Death With Dignity in Oregon instead of the illegal activities of Kathryn Harris and the voter fraud in Florida, or the squandering of the US Treasury. Why do we have Rush Limbaugh instead of Bill Maher? Why do they go after Martha Stewert but ignore Ken Lay? Why did they savage Clinton, but ignore George Bush? 
There is no justification for the drug war, especially as it applies to marijuana. Marijuana is harmless. It hurts no one. It has no victim. There has not been one recorded death as a result of marijuana use in the last 5000 years.  There is simply no harm there.
It is not a devil weed. It has no anti Christian properties, although I’m sure Jerry Falwell will find something homosexual about it and blame it on the ACLU. The government must no longer use Reefer Madness as their scientific resource bible. Every time I hear a debate on television about marijuana, the side against the use is strongly rightwing and always sound as if they are giving a sermon from a pulpit, and if the spew comes from Bob Bennett, he’ll find a way to blame Bill Clinton.  All the objections are the same old tired arguments you’ve heard for years and they are simply no longer valid. On the other hand, marijuana is of an enormous therapeutic value for those suffering from cancer, AIDS, other terminal illnesses and medical conditions. Marijuana use greatly reduces the painful side effects of their medical disease or medical condition, and in most cases, the drug of choice from those familiar with an end-of-life-environment. Marijuana use to counter the effects of chemotherapy is the unrivaled champ. Marijuana has no equal as an anti-emetic.  There are well-documented cases of patients with osteo-arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and those at the end of their lives suffering from depression in which marijuana is a clear winner. 
Most of you have never looked into the eyes of someone in a hospital bed who has just been told they have less than six months to live, or worse, 72 hours. To those people, death is coming too soon. Their time on earth is going to unmistakably end. The reactions are many. Some fight bravely to the very end, others are shocked into silence, others are terrified, but ultimately, this is their time for death with dignity. 
   “He was a 38-year-old tennis pro who was hugely successful as player and favorite of woman. An annual physical discovered a highly malignant and fulminating form of testicular cancer. Death was certain and it was going to be shockingly quick: twenty-seven more days.
I heard his first words after he was told he had inoperable testicular cancer that had metastasized throughout the abdominal cavity and into the bone.
I saw him waste away from a man who had a muscular physique to a shell of him with sunken orbits. He was in utter shock and could not believe this was happening to him.
A religious person (a man of the cloth) visited him sometime during my absence, and he was clearly upset by the visit. I don’t what they interchanged, but he forbid any further visits.
This patient was on chemotherapy. He was always nauseated and couldn’t eat. He had the pick of the menu but would rather stay hungry than to keep throwing up. 
Because of the fulminating character of his metastasis, he became part of shoptalk in the adjacent oncology department.  Knowing of my situation, a received a “brownie” from a co-worker who suggested I use it, and then described what it was and how it was used.  It was the oncology department’s solution of a treatment used for patients with cancer who had vomiting problems.  Someone would bake a tray of brownies and dump an ounce of marijuana in the recipe. That was forty years ago. We all knew it was the drug of choice and we all know it worked, and we were all terrified of getting caught using it.
It was a time when people in Berkely, California smoked freely on the street and the theaters usually had enough smoke it to get a little contact. All you had to do is inhale. The problem of getting it for patients needing it was not a problem.  It was only when the Reprehensible Radical Reichwing Repugnant Republicans led by Reagan that we got our drug war. “JUST SAY NO!!!” The Republicans liked war. Reagan had a whole bunch of wars, Iran/Contra, the Grenada thing, and others.  Bush Senior had his shoot out with Saddam, and collared Noriega, now Junior wants to shoot his wad and vaporized the Middle East. Clinton waged peace. He wanted love, not war and so do I.
This drug war is costing millions in salaries for drug cowboys, who buy their pickup trucks and pay the rent thanks to taxpayers. The guards in prison who are guarding about a million people who are pissed off for at lease the next ten years who are only guilty of growing or smoking marijuana and also get their salaries from the taxpayer. 
   This work gives him the needs to feed his family with his prison guard salary, but it is a thankless dead end job with a cheerless future. It cost about 30 or 40 thousand a year to feed and house a marijuana smoker. That is about a hundred times what the government spends on education to repair school buildings, or to send someone to school, or for the homeless, or insurance for the poor, or food for the hungry.
If you simply cancelled the entire drug war budget, you would make most of the citizens happy by reducing the stress of seeing many of their relatives, children and other hard-working Americans get their lives wrecked and go to prison for ten years for trying to help suffering patients like Valerie and Michael Corral did.  Not considering the insult to Valerie and Michael of having their door smashed down, what kind of injuries and insults did the patients suffer as a result of being denied access to their only source of marijuana and what was the therapeutic impact of the raid?  For this case alone, how much did it cost the taxpayers, what lesson did we learn, how was justice served, and did somebody care about the patients?The medical marijuana farm whose final product greatly reduced the suffering in the sick and dying was an asset to the community. I can’t think of a more noble purpose being greater served than through the efforts of Valerie and Michael Corral.Tell us Asa Hutchinson how you made America better place for all of us by using your office to harass Valerie and Michael Corral over marijuana cultivation?
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Comment #5 posted by trainwreck on September 09, 2002 at 08:47:11 PT
UP thanks for bringing up
that great old song by JD."they're trying to build a prison,for you and me to live in"System of a Down
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Comment #4 posted by dddd on September 09, 2002 at 02:23:06 PT
.....Real Criminals,,and Real Crimes....
...John Tyler summed it up quite well ;;;; "...And you know
      what the gov. people laugh about it. To them it's just another day at the office."
 
 
...I think this was well put Professor Tyler!....."..another day at the office.".......and if it was like most 'normal' business "offices",there are basically,two different types of people working there.....To put it in the simplest of terms..;there are Managers, ,and employees, ,,,Bosses and workers.,,,If you work for ,,let's say UPS,,or Verizon ,,Dell,,then you will fit into a class structure of employees.. You will fit into the spectrum that starts from entry level ,through mid-level managers,,upper level managers,,up to the corporate top dogs....A "day at the office", involves doing what your job requires.......BUT... this model of a "day at the office",, takes on a significantly different flavor when applied to law enforcement,,or in this case,,,the dea..... 
 
..If you are working for the dea,,you are not just some dude answering phones,or selling computers,,, nope. you are a member of a special government "Administration"!..And as a member of this exclusive group of enforcers, ,you must allow yourself to be subjected to military style indoctrination.,,You must accept,and believe the "Us against them",idea of law enforcement...You must pledge allegiance to the "we are good,they are evil" ,cult of assumptions! ........... To put it another way,,it's like the dea will make sure,,that you see things a certain way.,, and that is;; the "bad guys", are all drug using/dealing slimeballs who are responsible for killing children and all other types of evil......These dea employees,are brainwashed in a very similar way to how religious cults endoctrinate their victims of belief and "faith"!!.....
 
...Just think about it!(?)...how else can we explain a bunch of SWAT teams terrorizing innocent,peaceful people? 
..No one in their right mind would agree to carry out such absurd tactics against their fellow Americans,,unless they had been brainwashed and coerced from their superiors!..After all,,if I was working for the dea,,and my next paycheck was necessary to feed my children,pay the mortgage,and continue to drive my new GMC Yukon!,, well, then you're dam rite I'm gonna put on the SWAT gear and terrorize innocent people for my boss!.....
BUT... Who are the real CRIMINALS???...well,,in my opinion,,the real criminals are the ones who manage,and continue to perpetrate these abominations against normal,,harmless,,peaceful,,taxpaying,,law abiding citizens of California... If you wanna see the truly most dreadful and ghoulish criminal traitors and shitheads of all time,who have compromised their honor and integrity in a far worse way that the worst crack head,junkie ,murdering drug abusers,,, then you need look no further than the federal government!...
 
..I'm going to be even more disgusted and pissed,,as I watch the obscene fucking bullshit media frenzy smother the airwaves for the next week!...9/11 will be played up to the hilt,,,, we will see the empire continue to strongarm its' way towards a new "war"..... ... Am I upset?.... 
 
..I dont know if any of all this made sense.....I'm still out here in outer space,,and I'm not sure whether I will be able to return to Earth yet,,but I'll be back soon,, my ship's low on fuel.and the ARCO station in Bagdad has the cheapest prices,,and I think I might wanna fill my spaceships tank before they blast the shit out of it....again..
...love......sorry for the expletives..........indeedddd
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Comment #3 posted by Unknown Pleasures on September 08, 2002 at 22:41:03 PT
that most noble DEA...
All dressed in uniforms so fine,They drank and killed to pass the time,Wearing the shame of all their crimes,With measured steps, they walked in line.They walked in line,They walked in line,They walked in line,They walked in line,Full of a glory never seen,They made it through the whole machine,To never question anymore,Hypnotic trance, they never saw,They walked in line,They walked in line,They walked in line,They walked in line,-Joy Division.
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Comment #2 posted by John Markes on September 08, 2002 at 20:09:03 PT
no jurisdiction...
 The federal government "assumes" jurisdiction in intrastate commerce when you can't differentiate it with interstate commerce. When no commerce of any kind takes place, the federal gevernment is barred from jurisdiction by the constitution. They are using the tactics of direct terrorism to try to frighten people enough so they won't realize it...
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Comment #1 posted by John Tyler on September 08, 2002 at 19:43:47 PT
Harassment of course it is
The people in CA have ticked the Feds off. There are so many laws that anybody can be arrested for anything. The gov. has virtually unlimited resources. Most people don't have that much. They just want to rough these poor people up. Even if charges are dropped, or they are cleared they have been "jerked around", but that's the whole point and it is all legal. They will put these people through the wringer. It will cost them a lot of money. And you know what the gov. people laugh about it. To them it's just another day at the office.
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