DEA investigates Montana state legislator for medical marijuana views

[Judi Lynn]

DEA investigates Montana state legislator for medical marijuana views
By Eric Pfeiffer | The Sideshow – 15 mins ago

A member of Montana's state legislature says the Drug Enforcement Agency began investigating her over support for medical marijuana laws.

State House Democrat Diane Sands tells the Missoulian she was contacted by a defense attorney with some unusual news: The attorney had been approached by the DEA who wanted to know whether Sands might be connected to one of the attorney's clients who had been charged with distributing marijuana.

"So now, if you're a state legislator who has been working on medical marijuana laws, you are somehow part of a conspiracy," said Sands. "It's ridiculous, of course, but it's also threatening to think that the federal government is willing to use its influence and try to chill discussion about this subject."

Medical marijuana is legal in Montana, but the practice is still illegal under federal drug laws. The ATF recently stepped into Montana's medical marijuana laws as well, banning firearm sales and ownership from anyone with a medical pot card.

More:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/dea-investigates-montana-state-legislator-medical-marijuana-views-222007610.html

[limpyhobbler]

1. the war on marijuana is a war on the American people.

[Uncle Joe]

3. I agree, limpyhobbler, that's all it is. n/t

[Taverner]

4. I can't rec this enough. This is partially why I am unapologetically "Un-American"

[villager]

9. ...and is currently being prosecuted by the current administration.

n/t

[Uncle Joe]

2. I wonder if the ATF goes after people; owning guns with big pharma prescription drugs?

Thanks for the thread, Judi Lynn.

[RainDog]

5. WOW.

today a documentary filmmaker was arrested for trying to film gas pipeline hearings... it's extremely unusual for a camera crew to be denied such access, even w/o a film permit.

obviously the powers-that-be want to force the American people do to their bidding, and not have any opportunity to redress grievances or to share information about important environmental issues...

this is not what democracy looks like.

[RainDog]

6. I hate to keep asking

but would you please x-post this in the Drug Policy group for reference?

[WheelWalker]

7. Bizarre. Kicked & rec'd

[tridim]

8. The DEA needs to be punished for this action..

But I'm not sure it is even possible to punish the DEA short of defunding them, which will not happen. That is a problem, they have too much unchecked power.

[joeglow3]

13. I would like to see more facts before jumping to conclusions

All I see is hearsay and someone guessing what the motivation is.

[Bohunk68]

30. Doesn't take a genius

to figure it out. If you see cat poop on the floor, there's a cat somewhere.

[bemildred]

14. The DEA needs to be dismantled and the ground sown with salt.

What a disaster they have been for this countty.

[RainDog]

20. amen. the drug czar's office needs to go too

both of them are wastes

[LetTimmySmoke]

19. The DEA is the biggest drug cartel there is. They don't like up and coming competition.

[randome]

10. If medical marijuana is 'allowed' by the DEA in other states...

...what is their issue with Montana? I really don't think it's just because someone in the DEA is getting their kicks.

Maybe their issue is bullshit but there likely is one. Anyone know?

[KamaAina]

17. It's not

the jackbooted thugs succeeded in closing down California's oldest dispensary, in Marin County, for starters.

But this is pure police state stuff.

[randome]

18. No, they closed down some of the dispensaries in CA. Not all of them.

Some of the ones that were raided were not keeping valid inventories. At least one offered a 'sale' on medical marijuana.

No government will allow its citizens to flaunt the law. The dispensaries in CA that were closed were not following the law.

Now, does anyone know why the Montana dispensaries were raided?

[RainDog]

21. again - this is not true

they shut down places FULLY in compliance, pulled up plants at a NON-PROFIT that were being inspected by local sheriffs - that were TAGGED for patients - they didn't just go after those who were not in compliance.

[randome]

31. And yet they left so many more operating.

I'm only saying they had reasons for doing what they did. Maybe the reasons are bullshit but there were some, like the medical marijuana 'sale'.

[RainDog]

33. I wonder if that co-op was targeted b/c it was in a PBS doc

which would, basically, come down to a situation of intimidation.

so, no doubt, they had reasons for doing what they did - but those reasons weren't necessarily good. The DEA is a disgusting corrupt and criminal organization and we'd be better off without it.

[Occulus]

22. The Federal government has been running its own medical marijuana program for decades.

Our government does, has, and for all I know currently is not only allowing people to break the law, but has been the sole source of medical marijuana for them. Again, for decades.

The feds have been sending great big tins of Mary Janes to these people:

http://news.yahoo.com/4-americans-pot-us-government-070245907.html

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Sometime after midnight on a moonlit rural Oregon highway, a state trooper checking a car he had just pulled over found less than an ounce of pot on one passenger: A chatty 72-year-old woman blind in one eye.

She insisted the weed was legal and was approved by the U.S. government.

The trooper and his supervisor were doubtful. But after a series of calls to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Drug Enforcement Agency and her physician, the troopers handed her back the card — and her pot.

For the past three decades, Uncle Sam has been providing a handful of patients with some of the highest grade marijuana around. The program grew out of a 1976 court settlement that created the country's first legal pot smoker.

...

In 1976, a federal judge ruled that the Food and Drug Administration must provide Robert Randall of Washington, D.C. with marijuana because of his glaucoma — no other drug could effectively combat his condition. Randall became the nation's first legal pot smoker since the drug's prohibition.

Eventually, the government created its program as part of a compromise over Randall's care in 1978, long before a single state passed a medical marijuana law. What followed were a series of petitions from people like Musikka to join the program.

Quite a bit more at the link. Why isn't this program more known and understood and used by legalization activists?

I'm going to be as polite as I can be on this: Barack Hussein Obama, George Walker Bush, William Jefferson Clinton, George Herbert Walker Bush, Ronald Wilson Reagan, and even James Earl Carter have not only lied to us regarding cannabis as a general topic, shamefully, and in boldface, but have actually been the most blatant of hypocrites throughout. Their and their DEA's position on cannabis is a massive, major, intentional untruth, methodically sold to the American People using threat of force and actual use of force, sometimes fatal. This. Has. To END.

People have died over this plant's ban- but the government was still giving it out to people as of that article (Sep 28, 2011).

I'd like you to just think on that.

Think hard.

[boppers]

36. "Why isn't this program more known and understood and used by legalization activists?"

Because it's a medical marijuana program, not a marijuana legalization program.

The legalization people want to grow their own, and use it for medical conditions like "headaches", "back pain", "depression", etc., or just simple recreation, or grow it and sell it, without federal taxation or regulation.

[fasttense]

27. Flaunt the law?

No government will allow its citizens to flaunt the law? Really?

What about torture? We have laws against it, a treaty against it, we prosecuted Japanese soldiers for it but the bushes got to torture all they wanted.

What about mortgage fraud? What about financial fraud? What about murder? Corporations are killing people regularly because of their failure to follow safety regulations, tainted foods and poisoned products have killed many and yet no one goes to jail.

Governments routinely allow its citizens to flaunt the law. It just depends on which citizens you are talking about.

[truth2power]

29. Well, thank you for that. I was speechless reading that post. Flaunt the law??..

The govt. allows people to flaunt the law in exactly the ways you've described.

Sometimes I read stuff like that and I wonder how can anyone not see what goes on around them, in terms of govt. breaking the law, on a daily basis.

It just depends on whose interests are being served.

[RainDog]

32. a-fucking-men n/t

[FlaGatorJD]

11. This is ridiculous and a waste of our tax money

and as I said at 4:20 this afternoon, The President Has a Growing Marijuan Problem
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002253036

Also,
See the evolution of the Obama position on marijuana.

While I will still support him and vote for him, I am deeply saddened by the course of the Obama drug policies.

[madrchsod]

12. could it be protecting big phrama`s new legal pot based drug?

[boppers]

37. There's a new one?

They've been selling 'em for years. Not very popular with patients, though, because you can't get high.

[McCamy Taylor]

15. Does this mean the NRA now supports medical marijuana?

[Paka]

16. What a crock.

So does that mean that soon the ATF will go after gun owners who drink. That might actually make sense.

[RainDog]

23. The DEA has also been involved in undermining other nations' politics as well

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/world/26wikidrugs.html

The Drug Enforcement Administration has been transformed into a global intelligence organization with a reach that extends far beyond narcotics, and an eavesdropping operation so expansive it has to fend off foreign politicians who want to use it against their political enemies, according to secret diplomatic cables.

In far greater detail than previously seen, the cables, from the cache obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to some news organizations, offer glimpses of drug agents balancing diplomacy and law enforcement in places where it can be hard to tell the politicians from the traffickers, and where drug rings are themselves mini-states whose wealth and violence permit them to run roughshod over struggling governments.

Diplomats recorded unforgettable vignettes from the largely unseen war on drugs:

¶In Panama, an urgent BlackBerry message from the president to the American ambassador demanded that the D.E.A. go after his political enemies: “I need help with tapping phones.”

[DeSwiss]

24. Not to worry.....

...Big Brother is just protecting us from ourselves.





- K&R

[LostinRed]

25. Is this a joke?

[tech_smythe]

26. sadly, only on us...

but it's quite legit.
Montana is one of the states that has also legalized hemp production and has pushed the DEA HARD to allow local farmers to begin growing non-thc hemp for industrial purposes like textile, paper, and grains.

if it were legal, i'd but about 3 acres tomorrow and start a hemp (again non-thc) farm.
the amount of money i could be making in the next 4 years would pay off the farm, and guarantee a good life for my family - as well as some measure of protection from the economic / food issues to come.

[fasttense]

28. Our American government has become a country of the whim of the rich, aka fascist

We are not longer a country which holds to the rule of law. Only the average citizen is held to the letter of the law while the rich may do anything from torture to murder with no one held accountable.

[RainDog]

34. exactly. if this were about anything other than abuse of power

the six states that have currently legalized hemp would not be facing intimidation tactics from the DEA.

it's not the DEA's fucking business if farmers want to grow a non-psychotropic plant - the entire history of this law reeks of corruption. I'm sick of this shit - we can't move forward as a nation b/c we have an agency acting like it's more powerful than the people it's supposed to serve.

[ConservativChristian]

35. Jesus said to do unto others...

Jesus said to do unto others as we would have them to do unto us. None of us would want our child or grandchild thrown in jail with the sexual predators over marijuana. None of us would want to see an older family member’s home confiscated and sold by the police for growing a couple of marijuana plants for their aches and pains.
If the people who want to use marijuana could grow a few plants in their own back yards, it would be about as valuable as home-grown tomatoes; it would put the drug gangs out of business and get them out of our neighborhoods.

[boppers]

38. California voted on this....

It was voted down, because it would *crash* significant parts of California's economy if everybody just grew their own, no permits required.