Obama Administration steps up Anti-Marijuana battle (Oakland, Montclair: crime, neighborhood, high school)

[18Montclair]

As someone who doesnt smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol, I sort of have to wonder why those 2 are allowed to exist and be sold with the blessing of the federal government even though they kills thousands of people annually--yet marijuana is perceived as being way worse???

Steve DeAngelo, director of Oakland’s Harborside Health Center, one of the nation’s largest dispensaries, warned that if the IRS adopts this position towards all medical marijuana businesses, “Every dispensary in the nation, past, present and future is dead.”

The city of Oakland had planned to develop large, indoor medical marijuana farms as a means to increase revenues and close a $31 million budget deficit. But those plans are now on hold since federal law enforcement officials told the city council that Washington disapproves of the idea.

AllGov - News - Obama Administration Steps Up Anti-Marijuana Battle

[LongIslandEddie]

Realizing, from a scrutinous study of Obama, a study that has followed him from the campaign trail until this present day, has revealed that he seems
to be spreading himself too thin, each issue surfacing in the news and then getting swept under the political carpet. At first, as he dealt with quiries
about his position on marijuana, I detected a lack of fervence on his part to put the issue into a proper perspective, befitting of this new day, and age.
In a large part, I do believe that there are extant policy mandates or agendas that might not have been fully understood by him as he assumed the head
office of government and became involved in a more global governance, that is, his having to dictate policy in a world now overshadowed by the great
media capability offered by the internet as very little inside information was able to avoid exposure, to a hungry and eagerly waiting public.

There's a big difference between wanting to move forward on an issue like the great marijuana prohibition and being able to change the longtime and foolishly
held policy. When you consider that some new and emerging issues have replace the initial focus that was placed upon the loosely promised of an honest review
of the archaic legislation affecting marijuana and it's users, it is easy to understand that this review of law, policy and the associated personal freedom of the
users of marijuana, would fall by the wayside. It is the way that things always go on Capitol Hill, these many agency underlings, those far reaching tentacles
of an evergrowing bunch of federal sucklers, the hydra of overblown government and it's self-centered legislators.

We're as close now as we've ever been to seeing positive change. For long years we've been fed a line of crap by our government, they've orchestrated their
anti-marijuana campaign with it's basis steeped in physical harm and mental corruption, even aluding to bringing on certain human depravity. It was always a
crime wherein the the user was the only victim and the corruption of the individual had a negative effect upon the society in general. Today, it is really not a
victimless crime but because now, kids across this country are dying on the streets but not from the smoke of the reefer but rather, the smoke of a 9mm or a
TEC-9 as "turf wars" are fought by drug lords and neighborhood entrapeneurs who've begun to find that as the government has carried their senseless marijuana
policy over 80 years, they've carved out a lucrative profession for those with nothing more than financial incentives, whether those be government agencies who're
employed and well paid, to interdict marijuana, to the kid in high school who moves small weight to friends, for profit. Every working American who pays their taxes,
is the true victim. If our leaders were to make the decision to cut their losses (our losses), pull the plug on the money spent on jailing users or supporting those DEA
agents who're chasing windmills in their mispent efforts to win a war that can never be won, we'd all be much better off. They say that the common cockroach,
has been here since the dawn of time. So has cannabis. Neither of them is going to go away anytime soon and the sooner our government awakens to that fact,
the better off we'll all be.

[silverkris]

Originally Posted by 18Montclair

As someone who doesnt smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol, I sort of have to wonder why those 2 are allowed to exist and be sold with the blessing of the federal government even though they kills thousands of people annually--yet marijuana is perceived as being way worse???

1 - The political and economic power of the brewing, distilling, vintner, and tobacco industries

2 - relative lack of political clout of cannibis users and growers