cannabisnews.com: California Town's Leaders Join Pot Protest





California Town's Leaders Join Pot Protest
Posted by CN Staff on September 18, 2002 at 09:21:54 PT
By John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times
Source: Austin American-Statesman 
Officials in the ultra-liberal seaside town of Santa Cruz may not be marijuana smokers themselves, but on Tuesday they became pot purveyors with a political cause. In a display of defiance triggered by a recent federal bust of a local medical marijuana club, Mayor Christopher Krohn and numerous City Council members met outside City Hall to join workers from the Women's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in dispensing the drug to sick patients. 
Several hundred residents filled the town's City Hall plaza to cheer speakers and throw an old-fashioned anti-government rally. Santa Cruz Vice Mayor Emily Reilly said suppliers drew names from a hat to symbolically hand out pot prescriptions to a dozen patients who would have normally picked up their medication in private Tuesday. Each time the drug was dispensed, she said, the crowd went wild. "What was best were the speeches," Reilly said. "There were medical marijuana attorneys, doctors and even a county supervisor. And the message was about love and healing and trying to alleviate suffering." Six of seven council members appeared, along with Krohn. But Richard Meyer, a Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman in San Francisco, said he was not amused. "We're dismayed that the City Council and the mayor of Santa Cruz would condone the distribution of marijuana," he said. "I don't know what they're thinking, but they're flouting federal law. And we here at the DEA take violations of the law very seriously." On Sept. 5, federal agents raided a Santa Cruz medical marijuana collective, arrested three people and confiscated 130 plants. The move was met with outrage by residents of this surfers' haven and college town 75 miles south of San Francisco. Marijuana -- medical or otherwise -- is illegal under federal law. But under California law, the drug is legal if it is recommended by a doctor. Four years before state voters approved Proposition 215, allowing marijuana for medicinal purposes, Santa Cruz residents -- by a margin of 77 percent -- approved a measure ending the prohibition of medical marijuana. Santa Cruz authorities have cooperated with local collectives for years, helping set standards for medicinal marijuana use, issuing IDs and looking the other way as suppliers provided free, organically grown marijuana. A recorded message at the Women's Alliance for Medical Marijuana on Tuesday stressed that the event was not a "free pot giveaway" and that the drug would be distributed only to "certain patients with support of many city officials."Note: City Hall defiant after medicinal marijuana bust in Santa Cruz.Source: Austin American-Statesman (TX)Author: John M. Glionna, Los Angeles TimesPublished: Wednesday, September 18, 2002Copyright: 2002 Austin American-StatesmanContact: letters statesman.comWebsite: http://www.austin360.com/aas/Related Articles & Web Sites:WAMMhttp://www.wamm.org/Pictures From WAMM Protesthttp://freedomtoexhale.com/eventpics.htmPot Giveaway in Santa Cruz Draws 1,100http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14156.shtmlWorld Watches Pot Handouthttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14154.shtmlSanta Cruz Defies U.S. On Marijuana http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14153.shtmlMedical Marijuana Backed in Santa Cruz http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14152.shtml 
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Comment #7 posted by VitaminT on September 18, 2002 at 21:05:44 PT
Now I am confused p4me
Does this shed any light on the matter?Obfuscation 
 
[16c: from Latin obfuscare/obsfuscatum to darken, from fuscus dark]. A use of language that makes a subject obscure or difficult to understand, or complex to the point of confusion. The aim of obfuscation is to prevent communication, not to promote it. Government agencies often use such language. For example, in 1983 the US Department of Energy issued the following regulation: 'Nothing in these regulations precludes the secretary or his delegate from designating information not specifically described in this regulation as unclassified controlled unclear information.' Compare Doublespeak, Jargon, Obscurantism. [Style, Usage]. W.D.L.
 
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Comment #6 posted by p4me on September 18, 2002 at 20:56:28 PT
I will spare you tomorrow
In comment5 I tried to correct a spelling of obfuscation from misspelling it in comment2 and I misspelled it again. It is like Groundhog Day I tell you. If I had not misspelled it I would not have thought about the definition at dictionary.com to correct a bad idea of not posting the definition so that people that did not read Kap's posting or otherwise know might know the definition of obfuscation.So that I might be first to say it, I must try again.I call obfuscation. ob·fus·cate  Pronunciation Key (bf-skt, b-fskt)
tr.v. ob·fus·cat·ed, ob·fus·cat·ing, ob·fus·catesTo make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand: “A great effort was made... to obscure or obfuscate the truth” (Robert Conquest).
To render indistinct or dim; darken: The fog obfuscated the shore.For burdening you today, I will spare you tomorrow.1,2
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Comment #5 posted by p4me on September 18, 2002 at 20:45:41 PT
I have to correct a spelling
I thought I had a decent comment in comment2 and it dawned on me that I should check the spelling of obufucation. My comment is flawed because of the spelling of a key word. I regret troubling everyone over spelling but obufucation is a key word in the whole description of why we have marijuana prohibition and the correct spelling should appear in this thread so people will learn its proper spelling. Also, in one thread I wrote "I call obfucscation" as that is the way I remembered it. A misspelling would mean a search would not detect it because it is in fact obufucation. If a search is done of this website by someone with too much time on his hands, this may be the first occurrence of the next line at cannabisnews. I call obufucation. 1,2
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Comment #4 posted by malleus on September 18, 2002 at 11:08:26 PT
A big black eye
But what's also very interesting: note how the media has gone to great pains to point out that the recipients were receiving the medicine free? Just like they did at the WAMM Center? Telling the public something we alraedy know, and should come out in a trial.When the DEA is finally forced to justify publicly what they did, they have to face the fact that there was no 'commerce' at all. Not intrastate - which they have no say in, anyway - and no interstate commerce either. Free and clear of any money taint.If the DEA says that it derives it's powers from the commerce clause of the constitution, and no commerce took place, then the DEA has not a single legal leg to stand on. The advantage is all the Center's. If law means anything, anymore, that is.I hope that their lawyer is thinking the same thing, as this could cut the DEA down to size.
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Comment #3 posted by Max_Allyn on September 18, 2002 at 10:00:36 PT:
Did you see the news last night????
This was all over the news last night. Congrats to the Santa Cruz city hall and all of the people who worked to put this giveaway together. I saw the story on about four or five different news channels last night. I think its great that the giveaway got as much coverage as it did because now, the entire American Public knows about it and they all now know that the DEA raided the farms in Santa Cruz. I think now that the knowledge of the DEA raids is out, more poeple will begin to take side with the medical marijuana. The DEA stated that the farms were just looking for a new way to traffic drugs. What a bunch of bull, if they were trafficing drugs, then they wouldnt be giving them away for free. I think the news coverage was great too because it showed the kind of people who are recieveing this medicine and now know that it isn't just a bunch of pothead getting stoned.
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Comment #2 posted by p4me on September 18, 2002 at 09:53:46 PT
I thought he said
"I don't know what they're thinking, but they're flouting federal law. And we here at the DEA take violations of the law very seriously."I challenge anything such a bias paper from a backwardly conservative customer base has to say. I heard Richard Meyer said this and I copy from the more reliable source of liesbullshit&obsufucation.com:"People are questioning our thinking and our motives for holding to the proposition that marijuana has no medical value despite milleniums of use and many scientific studies that indicate we are lying. This gathering shows that people take our misclassification that is in complete disregard of our own guidelines as reason to mock our reckless disregard of science and logic in promoting an unjust law. The thoughts of 73% of the people are irrelevant as long as the 1% with the gold make the rules."Richard Cowan might say that "The reason for the continued prohibition of cannabis is bad journalism." The motto of LB&O.com is taken from him and should be acknowledged. (People you should have known I used restraint in not using this before) The motto is "The reason for continuing lies, bullshit, and obsufucation that support marijuana prohition  are expressed in the two letters, BJ."Pot-tv for this Wednesday had there usual doctor from Colorado talk of new studies relating to cannabanoids regarding the heart. The indications are marijuana helps with the heart keeping its rythm although, I really prefer to not talk of any details when there are real experts and pot-tv is a click away. I think the doctor said that cannabis is medicine and if he did not say it today, he has said it before. My personal conclusion is that marijuana is medicine, that the legalization is being stopped by LB&O and it would not be possible without BJ.1,2
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Comment #1 posted by PonziScheme on September 18, 2002 at 09:47:52 PT
"Flouting the law"
That's it. The DEA can just shut up now. All their talk about "having no choice but to enforce federal law;" "being unable to distinguish between medical marijuana distribution versus trafficking;" "all use being abuse;" "pot having no medical value" etc. has been exposed as bunk. Obviously, the Feds do have a choice and on Tuesday they excercised the choice NOT to bust patients and their providers. Obviously they CAN distinguish between medical and non-medical distribution of marijuana, which is why they FAILED to file charges against Valerie and Michael Corral. If the DEA feels so strongly about this, then the Justice Department should prosecute DEA agent Richard Meyer et a.l under the federal RICO statutes since he and his DEA cronies knowingly allowed a "continuing criminal enterprise" to operate openly on Tuesday. Or the Feds can just shut the hell up!
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