Cops Hand Deliver Marijuana Legalization Report To US Drug Czar

Obama’s Drug Czar Says He Ended “War on Drugs” Two Years Ago

Cops Hand-Deliver Report to Drug Czar’s Office While Czar Refuses to Meet

By Tom Angell

In conjunction with this week’s 40th anniversary of President Nixon declaring “war on drugs,” a group of police, judges and jailers who support legalization released a report today showing how the Obama administration is ramping up a war it disingenuously claims that it ended two years ago.

Following the report’s release at a press conference this morning, the pro-legalization law enforcers attempted to hand-deliver a copy to Obama administration drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, who is a former Seattle chief of police. Instead of making time to listen to the concerns of fellow law enforcers who have dedicated their careers to protecting public safety, he simply sent a staffer to the lobby to receive a copy of the cops’ report.

Norm Stamper, also a former chief of police in Seattle and a speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, said, “It wasn’t hard to put together a report showing how the Obama administration continues to wage the failed ‘war on drugs’ even while pretending to end it. Although President Obama has talked about respecting states’ rights to enact medical marijuana laws, his DEA has raided state-legal medical marijuana providers at a higher rate than under the Bush administration. Similarly, this president has continued a Bush-era budget ratio that heavily favors spending on punishment over providing resources for treatment, even though he has said drug addiction should be handled as a health issue.”

The full text of the pro-legalization cops’ report is available online at http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com/40years

In the past four days alone, 2,500 people have used LEAP’s website to send letters to President Obama asking him to transform his administration’s good rhetoric on ending the “war on drugs” into policy reality. That action alert is also online at http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com/40years

Neill Franklin, a former Baltimore narcotics cop and LEAP’s executive director, said, “Over the past few weeks, us cops who have been on the front lines of the ‘war on drugs’ have made numerous attempts to schedule a meeting with the drug czar to share our concerns about the harms these drug laws are causing. The fact that he refused to sit down with us and discuss these issues – even when we went directly to his doorstep – speaks volumes about how much the Obama administration would rather ignore the failed ‘war on drugs’ than do anything to actually address it.”

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) represents police, prosecutors, judges, prison wardens, federal agents and others who want to legalize and regulate drugs after fighting on the front lines of the “war on drugs” and learning firsthand that prohibition only serves to worsen addiction and violence. More info at http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
Visit LEAP’s *NEW* website: http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com

Drug-Bashing Republican Lawmaker Charged For Marijuana

Photo: Franky Benitez

Rep. Robert Watson likes making fun of marijuana. Oh, and smoking it.

In the latest fine example of Republican high-pocrisy when it comes to cannabis, a high-ranking GOP legislator in Rhode Island is squirming after being charged with driving under the influence of marijuana, possession of marijuana, and possession of “drug paraphernalia.”

An embarrassing pot bust would be bad enough for any politician, but this guy — Rep. Robert Watson — is a real piece of work who is remembered for making offensive anti-drug, anti-gay and anti-immigrant remarks, reports Kase Wickman at The Raw Story.

In February, Watson said the Rhode Island Legislature had their priorities right — “if you are a Guatemalan gay man who likes to gamble and smokes marijuana.”

Rather than just apologize and move on, Watson — while a guest on a radio show soon after that misstep, and in response to the understandable outcry over his comments — said, “I reject the suggestion that it’s insulting.”

Watson continued to refuse to say he was sorry. “I apologize when appropriate and/or necessary,” Watson told the Providence Journal in February. “I identify this situation as representing neither circumstance.”

The East Greenwich, R.I., politician recently pooh-poohed debate over the decriminalization of marijuana as not worthy of legislators’ time, reports The Associated Press.

Watson was pulled over at a police checkpoint on Friday, according to East Haven police. Officers noted a “strong odor of marijuana” coming from the nervous Republican’s car, and charged him with possession and driving under the influence after a search.

The loud-mouthed, bigoted legislator seems to have suddenly gotten a lot quieter.

But his office finally released a statement on Monday in which he denied he was driving under the influence. He claimed he was in Connecticut to help a friend move, and was driving home from dinner when he was stopped.

“Trace evidence of marijuana was discovered and I was charged with operating under the influence, a charge I vehemently deny,” Watson said in a prepared statement.

Watson won’t face immediate political consequences for his little adventure. Rhode Island’s Ethic’s Commission won’t investigate allegations that fall outside a lawmaker’s public duties. So it looks like this two-faced THC-hound will continue having a bully pulpit to badmouth marijuana despite the fact that he enjoys it himself.

He’s been released after signing a $500 bond and promising to appear in court on May 11.

Top 10 Marijuana Quotes

10. “Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.”- William F. Buckley Jr.

9. “Forty million Americans smoked marijuana; the only ones who didn’t like it were Judge Ginsberg, Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton.” – Jay Leno

8. “I now have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb blast” – Ronald Reagan

7. “The drug is really quite a remarkably safe one for humans, although it is really quite a dangerous one for mice and they should not use it.” – J.W.D Henderson Director of the Bureau of Human Drugs, Health and Welfare, Canada

6. “Casual drug users should be taken out and shot” – Darryl Gates Head of Los Angeles Police Department United States Senate Judiciary Committee

5. “When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t inhale and never tried it again.” –Bill Clinton

4. “When I was a kid I inhaled frequently. That was the point.” – Barack Obama

3. “Now, like, I’m President. It would be pretty hard for some drug guy to come into the White House and start offering it up, you know? … I bet if they did, I hope I would say, ‘Hey, get lost. We don’t want any of that.’” – George W. Bush

2. “I think pot should be legal. I don’t smoke it, but I like the smell of it.” – Andy Warhol

1. “I used to smoke marijuana. But I’ll tell you something: I would only smoke it in the late evening. Oh, occasionally the early evening, but usually the late evening – or the mid-evening. Just the early evening, midevening and late evening. Occasionally, early afternoon, early midafternoon, or perhaps the late-midafternoon. Oh, sometimes the early-mid-late-early morning. . . . But never at dusk.” – Steve Martin