White House: Expect "Greater Enforcement" of Recreational Marijuana Laws

As I have noted on this blog and in my VEER Magazine column, rigid enforcement of marijuana laws against recreational users costs Virginia (and other states) millions and millions of dollars each year.  Worse yet, a marijuana conviction leaves young offenders with permanent criminal records that make securing good paying jobs in the future difficult, if not impossible. And as a crowning glory, such laws are disproportionately enforced against minorities who not only are arrested more frequently but who often cannot afford legal counsel who can facilitate a lesser sentence.  In short, enforcement of such laws creates an underclass and permanently stigmatizes countless young individuals.  So what is Der Trumpenführer proposing?  A crack down and stepped enforcement of federal marijuana laws.  Funny how the issue of transgender rights should be left to the states, but not marijuana laws.  Oh, and meanwhile, Trump wants to revert back to the use of private, for profit prisons.  One cannot help but wonder if he owns stock in such operations.  Here are highlights from Time on this wrongheaded effort:

The Trump Administration will step up enforcement of federal laws on recreational marijuana in states where its use is legalized, the White House said Thursday.

Asked about the conflict between federal laws barring recreational marijuana and the handful of states that allow it, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the Administration would change direction from the more permissive approach under President Obama.

"I do believe you'll see greater enforcement of it," Spicer told reporters Thursday during the White House briefing.

It would represent the latest policy shift from the Obama Administration, which declined to enforce federal laws in states that legalized weed, such as Colorado and Washington, as long as the states regulated the marketplace. As he prepared to leave office, former President Obama came out in favor of legalizing marijuana.

Spicer repeatedly linked the use of marijuana to the nationwide opioid abuse epidemic, suggesting without offering proof that marijuana is a gateway drug to more serious substances.

Earlier in the briefing, Spicer touted the president and the GOP's commitment to deferring to the states over the federal government on controversial issues.

“We are a states’ rights party," he said while discussing a reversal of Obama-era guidance on transgender student bathroom use.

Let's be clear, Spicer and his boss are a**holes.  Oh, and did I mention that marijuana convictions often disenfranchise the disproportionately number of blacks who are prosecuted?  It all fits nicely with Trump's white supremacist agenda. .

Gay Marriage & Marijuana - Why You Can't Stop Either One

In a column in Newsweek that no doubt is provocative to those on the far right, Jacob Weisberg looks at the inevitability of nationally recognized same sex marriage and changes in the nation's marijuana laws. He posits that society is changing and that this change dooms the efforts of conservatives in the long run to keep same sex couples as legal inferiors and to continue to criminalize the use/possession of small amounts of marijuana use for personal use. In the case of the latter issue, I for one have never believed that marijuana use necessarily leads to other drug use. Individuals with addictive personalities/genes will become addicted if not on marijuana, then on alcohol or other legal drugs. I don't mean to sound unsympathetic towards such individuals, but the fact that some will abuse marijuana and/or become psychologically addicted should not mean that we put laws on the books that needlessly condemn many to criminal records for mere recreational use of marijuana. The situation is truly no different than with alcohol and we all know what a failure Prohibition turned out to be - except for the bootleggers who made fortunes. Likewise, the younger generation increasingly recognizes that the validating same sex relationships in no wise threatens heterosexual marriage. Indeed, it might avoid all of the divorces that arise from gays marrying straights in an effort to conform only to have it all fall apart over time. Here are some highlights:

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Prohibition now is different from Prohibition then. When the 18th Amendment went into effect in 1920, it was a radical social experiment challenging a custom as old as civilization. A predictable failure—the insult to individual rights, the impossibility of enforcement, the spawning of organized crime—it came to an end in 1933. Today it is a byword for futile attempts to legislate morality and remake human nature.
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Our forms of prohibition are more sins of omission than commission. Rather than trying to take away longstanding rights, they're instances of conservative laws failing to keep pace with a liberalizing society. But like Prohibition in the '20s, these restrictions have become indefensible as well as impractical, and as a result are fading fast. Within 10 years, it seems a reasonable guess that Americans will travel freely to Cuba, that all states will recognize gay unions, and that few will retain criminal penalties for marijuana use by individuals. These reforms are inevitable—not because politics has changed, but because society has.
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The chief reason these prohibitions are falling away is the evolving definition of the pursuit of happiness. What's driving the legalization of gay marriage is not so much the moral argument, but the pressures from couples who want to sanctify their relationships, obtain legal benefits, and raise children in a stable environment. What's advancing the decriminalization of marijuana is not just the demand for pot as medicine but the number of adults—more than 23 million in the past year, according to the most recent government survey—who use it and don't believe they should face legal jeopardy.
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The Internet has been a crucial amplifier of all such claims. With pornography and gambling, the Web itself became an irrepressible distribution tool. When it comes to gay marriage, it has accelerated the recognition of a new civil right by serving as an organizing tool and information clearinghouse. More broadly, the freest communications medium the world has ever known has raised expectations of personal liberty.
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Politicians will continue to lag, rather than lead, these changes. Republicans face a risk in resisting the new realities. If the GOP remains the party of prohibition, it will increasingly alienate libertarian leaners and the young. Democrats face a different danger in embracing cultural transformations too eagerly.
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I believe that Weisberg is correct in his analysis. The question, therefore, then becomes one of when will the forces of reaction and old ways of thinking will be overcome or die out?

Hypocrites Need to Lay Off Michael Phelps

UPDATED: A petition taking Kelloggs to task for firing Michael Phelps has sprung up. To read/sign the petition go here.

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I am not one to typically weigh into issues involving sports. Other than enjoying surfing, sailing, water skiing and ski skiing, I largely missed out on getting the sports gene. But the BS going on over Michael Phelps' bong photo is getting to be off the charts in terms of hypocrisy. Beginning with Kelloggs (whose products I will now avoid purchasing) - which has dropped Phelps' endorsement - the hypocrisy and cases of false vapors over a kid like Phelps perhaps using a little marijuana is nauseating. In my generation, anyone who claims that they did not try out marijuana is either lying, was/is a religious nutcase or was such an incredible dork that they were in social exile. I suspect the same has more or less held true in over the intervening years since my youth.

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Could it be that some of the feigned outrage is that someone like Phelps using marijuana dispels the fabricated myth that marijuana necessarily leads to other drug use or impairs one's ability to function at high levels? Moreover, I'm sorry, but where was the outrage from these same folks when we had a president and vice president ordering war crimes activities in violation of the Geneva Conventions? Now, Phelps - who has done so much to boost interest in swimming - is debating whether or not he will swim in the 2012 Olympics. All because sanctimonious hypocrites have their panties in a wad. It's about time that people and the drug laws on marijuana came into reality. Here are some highlights from the Baltimore Sun:

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In his first interview since a photo surfaced showing him smoking from a marijuana pipe, Michael Phelps said yesterday that the intense public scrutiny has him contemplating whether he will swim in the 2012 Olympics. Phelps, who said that he "clearly made a mistake" and that the past week has been both embarrassing and uncomfortable for him, spoke with The Baltimore Sun inside Meadowbrook Aquatic Center after finishing his daily workout. While he still has goals he wants to achieve in the sport, he said, he's going to discuss it with his family and his coach, Bob Bowman.

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Phelps said he has spent the past few days with his mother and two sisters after the photo was published in Britain's News of the World over the weekend. "We've been talking a lot," he said. "I've been able to get back to my family. It's part of my life I need back."When asked whether he regularly smoked marijuana, Phelps said he did not.

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A majority of his sponsors have vowed to stick with him despite the controversy, and yesterday, swimming's governing body, FINA, praised his apology. But scrutiny of his public life has become that much more prominent.

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If anything, Phelps said, this has reminded him that he's subject to being watched, photographed and talked about each time he enters a room."There are always people you can't trust," he said. "During the whole thing, I've really been able to see who my friends are, who my family are, and who really loves and supports me. They've stood by my side, from the countless text messages, phone messages, e-mails, those are your friends. All those people who are around during the good times? Those aren't your friends."

New Studies Expose Government Lies About Medical Pot

While I am not endorsing the use of illegal drugs, why am I not surprised that the US Government has been lying about the use of medical marijuana? For years it has seemed to me that a disproportionate amount of effort and funding has been wasted on prosecuting and jailing people for minor drug offenses involving marijuana. I mean, if Scotter Libby doesn't have to do time, why do young adults caught with minuscule amounts of marijuana? Here's highlights of a story on new medical research results:

When Connecticut's Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell vetoed legislation last month that would have allowed citizens with debilitating medical conditions to use medical cannabis under their doctor's supervision, she alleged that there was no proof of pot's therapeutic effectiveness and that legal alternatives are available by prescription. Now, a just-released clinical trial by researchers at Columbia University in New York is making the governor's statements ring hollow.

On June 21, just 24 hours after Gov. Rell's veto, the online database for the National Library of Medicine posted an a forthcoming study from the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes that reports, "Smoked marijuana … has a clear medical benefit in HIV-positive [patients] by increasing food intake and improving mood and objective and subjective sleep measures."

Clinicians further reported that smoking higher-strength marijuana -- that's the 3.9 percent pot for this study's purposes -- subjectively improved patients' sleep better than oral THC. Perhaps more important, authors reported that HIV patients made far fewer requests for over-the-counter 'rescue' medications while using cannabis. Scientists reported that most of these requests were to treat subjects' gastrointestinal complaints (nausea, diarrhea and upset stomach) -- conditions that have long been reported by patients to be alleviated with medical pot.

The full story appears here: http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/56753