Multi-Agency Drug Task Force Wastes Money and Time Harassing Wheel-Chair Bound Patient
Yesterday, the Pecos Valley Drug Task Force in southeastern New Mexico entered another skirmish in the failed war on drugs. Drug task forces typically combine local, state, and federal law enforcement officers who collaborate to take down large-scale drug dealers and crime organizations and seize large quantities of drugs. They receive their funding from a combination of state and federal sources, and the idea is generally to use these combined resources to investigate operations that are too large for one officer to handle. So how did these officers spend their time yesterday to make the Pecos Valley safer?
Officers raided and seized a marijuana grow operation from the home of Leonard French, a paraplegic man who lost the use of both of his legs in a motorcycle accident. They seized...six plants, most of which were dead, according to Mr. French. Mr. French suffers chronic pain and muscle spasms due to his spinal cord injury, and qualified as a medical marijuana patient under the Lynn and Erin Compassionate Use Act state law that passed earlier this year. Medical marijuana offers him relief with fewer side effects, he reports, than other pharmaceuticals that he's tried.
This was an obviously politically motivated stunt, the latest in a nationwide battle for patients' rights that has fronts in the 12 states that have passed medical marijuana laws, and in numerous other states that are considering such laws. This is politics at its worst, where the casualties aren't lost legislative votes, but real people who are suffering and deserve better from our federal government. The federal agents who participated in this raid should be focusing on real issues that impact public safety, not harassing sick people and intimidating law abiding citizens who just want some relief.
Polling in New Mexico and nationwide shows overwhelming support for seriously ill people who need legal access to medical marijuana. But elected officials have been slow to catch on, and the federal government's policies and lobbying are keeping patients in misery. Federal officials came to New Mexico four times in two years to lobby against this legislation. Once it passed, those of us who advocated for the legislation thought our work was done.
But as this latest raid reveals, federal agents are willing to waste time and money to intimidate these patients and prevent our medical marijuana program from being successful. Even though the law has passed, it seems that the federal government is determined to continue to fight what has already happened, and turn New Mexico into some kind of example.
Governor Bill Richardson sent a letter to President George Bush two weeks ago, calling on him to end his heartless medical marijuana policy. By doing so, he stood by the state law that he signed in April, and also stood by the New Mexicans who he was elected to represent, and who overwhelmingly support this law. If the feds want to fight this battle patient by patient, they may boost their arrest numbers but they will surely lose the support of the American people.
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American soldiers in Afghanistan unknowingly guard opium poppy fields for black ops funding.
The CIA lets cocaine come in and out of Columbia, and even train the kingpins at the School of the Americas.
Iran/Contra in the 80's is believed to have escalated the crack epidemic.
Vietnam and the covert Afghan war of the 80's was partly funded on heroin money.
Don Rumsfeld was a huge reason why the cancer-causer Aspartame is in everything sugar-free.
I'm confident that Bush still coke's up.
And we all know how LSD was originally tested by the military for use against the commies.
The war on drugs, like everything else in this government, is about double standards.
What really angers me the most is the DEA is usurping state's rights. They're not even respecting the rules of the states and the people who use these rights.
A total police state.
Country music song writer, Hoyt Axton, was wheelchair bound when he was arrested by the same police department he had helped purchase body armor and guns. The sheriff, ignoring that Axton was dying and the cannibis helped him deal with it, said the 'law is the law.'
A girl was suspended for several weeks from her school because she gave another girl a Midol. Her school had zero tolerence. She received the same punishment from the school as she would have from giving the girl oxycontin for her cramps.
Zero tolerence, mandatory sentencing is the crutch for very, very stupid people who cannot judge events by their specific facts. It is a useful tool for politicians to promote their law and order stance. But, and most discouraging, there are billions..
Welcome to conservative America, where individual choices are a thing of the past.
A very scary reason for continuing the drug war is to arm local and state law enforcement with military equipment . Why does your local cop need a fully automatic assault rifle ? Why do local cops need spy equipment like aircraft mounted FLIR or listening devices ?
And in this war, please remember, if you get caught, the possibility of seizure is immense. What I wish to know is whether Mr. French has had the RICO act employed, whether or not terrorist attachments have been implicated due to drug trafficing. These are the true tools behind the DEA enforcements--and it is at seizure auctions that they get paid--40% to the local and state, 60% to the Feds. I wonder if Mr. French still has his house--or has it been sacrificed to the DEA's seizure fever?
The "War On Drugs" is a very easy "I'm all about law enforcement" banner for politicans. Since they don't actually give a rats patootie about anything other than power and the pursuit of power, it plays well for them and that is why they don't want it to go away.
Law enforcement bureaus like it because the funding for it pays for a lot of salaries and some sweet toys.
it figures. they probably can't bust the real drug kingpins so they justify their "war on drugs" by busting a bunch of medical marijuana growers...
I don't agree with the "legalize ALL drugs" viewpoint but... I have yet to have anyone explain to me how kicking back in your easy chair and smoking a joint is any different/worse than sitting there smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer. It is abso-effing-lutely ridiculous that marijuana is illegal. Even if just that were legalized this country would be a helluva better place.
Both the Democrats and Republicans are guilty of continuing the failed War on Some Drugs.
The solution is to close the DEA and legalize all drugs.
I don't want a big mummy government to tell me what i can and can't put in my body.
This shows the cruelty of the War on Some drugs.
I will never forget when my friends father was dying of cancer and was in severe pain. She asked the doctor to do something to ease his suffering and he said he would give him a Tylenol.
She asked why he wouldn't give him some morphine or other opiate .
The doctor said he did not want to risk her father becoming an addict.
Her father was declared to be 100% terminal by this doctor and would die within a couple months.
She was outraged and got another doctor.
Why do doctors who specialize in pain management get the same number of prescriptions as say a foot doctor?
The DEA should be disbanded and ALL drugs should be freely available.
The only exception should be strong antibiotics since people who do not take the whole course or overuse these can help create resistant strains of bacteria and that is the only true drug abuse.
Remember until 1902 anyone of any age could purchase any drug for$10 an ounce or less at the grocery store.
Marijuana is safer than coffee as shown by the good studies done .
Only when a person can control themselves completely are they truly free.
I'm not sure why, but I always loved mescaline. At least I think I did. Were those chocolate mescaline caps really mescaline, or just a way for someone to move some pretty decent acid at higher than acid prices? Either way, we all convinced ourselves that it had a better high, and was a cleaner trip.
Peyote, though, was unmistakable, and was never a completely clean trip. When the puking stopped, however, the appropriate "doors of perception" thing happened and it's clear where the connection with spirituality comes from. There was some liquefied stuff we bought in a market in Durango, Mexico one time that was a challenge to slug down, but it was still more manageable than the dried cactus buttons. And I never saw or heard of anyone getting hurt on the stuff.
So, some folks get a legal peyote high in this country, and do it all in the name of following their ancient socio/religious customs. Anyone else gets a felony conviction if caught, and that's just the way it goes.
Doesn't it seem odd that we don't have a "one size fits all" policy on this subject? If peyote creates a spiritual experience, do you really want some bureaucrat deciding who gets to go there? If the stuff is safe enough for some folks, what is the excuse for keeping it out of the hands of the rest of us?
I mean, if the government is afraid of things getting out of hand, how about a chain of state owned "sweat lodges" where we have to pay admission to get in, and pass a sobriety test to get out? Or, what the heck, let's just sell mescaline pills at the concession stands of every amusement park. That's what I would call a real magic kingdom.
I don't think the feds are necessarily afraid of things getting out of hand and a person's health is irrelevant.
Here's my theory as to the real reason they are fighting the legalization of drugs: It's all about the money. Illegal drugs are a multi-billion dollar operation.
So, the govt. confiscates it, sells it, and then uses the (untraceable) money to fund their black ops or some other questionable endeavor. Meanwhile, they arrest, convict, and imprison the offending person, thus satisfying the demands of those lobbying to keep drugs illegal and prisons full; i.e., drug lords and for-profit private prisons. Oh, and as a bonus, they can then confiscate (steal) all of your property and personal possessions by claiming you purchased same with money you made from the "manufacture" and sale of illegal drugs.
And why do they go after the user? To keep those crime stats up to justify the need for more law enforcement and prisons.
And the beat goes on...
If the opium poppy was legal again people could grow their on pain medication instead of feeding a drug company billions a month.
I remember the man coming to our home as a kids demdning all the poppy's be destroyed.
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Posted August 29, 2007 | 07:04 PM (EST)