Cannabis Legalization: Follow the Money

On August 11, 2016 the DEA said Cannabis will remain a Schedule 1 substance, the same classification as heroin. The DEA classifies a schedule 1 drug as one “with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

Other Schedule 1 substances include peyote, MDMA, psilocybin and LSD. For reference, cocaine is a schedule 2 drug. Xanax and Valium are schedule 4 drugs.

I’m writing from Seattle, Washington in the year 2016. From where I sit I can walk to multiple cannabis shops to legally purchase cannabis for recreational and medicinal purposes.

From where I sit the news from the DEA comes from an alternate universe stuck somewhere in the 1950’s. A dark world, blind to its people and content with a legally armed system to deny a human’s right to explore its consciousness. A world without internet and still battling those damn hippies.

Are you part of that world?

If you are still part of the minority of humans that insists that humanity remains in the Dark Ages of human consciousness, and still not convinced cannabis has proven medicinal uses, I encourage you to access the internet and visit Google.com.

I’ve digressed.

With multiple states acting for human rights in bold defiance of the far-behind federal government, why would the DEA still maintain its draconian stance? It’s easy:

Money

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair, “The Jungle”

Follow the money.

If Marijuana is legal, law enforcement agencies cannot steal property (money) from people who use or sell cannabis. Their budgets suffer significant loss taking away their purchasing power for community-enhancing military grade weapons, armor and overtime pay.

An attorney named Lee McGrath, with the libertarian Institute for Justice, examined Minnesota’s asset stealing history. He found that:

“Law enforcement agencies in Minnesota netted almost $30 million from 2003 to 2010, taking more than 34,000 pieces of property including cash, vehicles and other types of property—the equivalent of one piece of property from every resident of the city of Roseville.”

And that’s just one State of 50’s revenue.

The DEA’s money motive to keep cannabis as a schedule 1 drug is summed up nicely by Duncan Trussell:

Here’s the link from above to the DEA’s public list of property they forfeit, updated regularly:  http://www.forfeiture.gov/pdf/DEA/OfficialNotification.pdf

The first forfeiture on the list features $75,403.98 taken from two men indicted for trafficking synthetic cannabinoids. Totally scary.

Where does the money go once Cannabis is legalized? 

In Washington state, “residents voted to earmark tax revenue from legal pot sales to education, health care, research and substance-abuse prevention, but not to law enforcement.” ²

I couldn’t think of a happier ending to a a piece of the drug war: Money for education, helping addicts recover, and healthcare.

Until the DEA stands down, and we as a people begin to collectively challenge the deceptive drug war, this will not end.

How can we fight it?

Inform yourself and others. Be vocal.

We have an unprecedented level of access to, ability to share information. We have the ability to expose and hold accountable our government.

This isn’t just about your right to smoke a joint in the comfort of your home, or to heal severe emotional trauma with psychedelic therapy, or just the right to use cannabis oil to stop seizures, this is about your human right to do with yourself what you please.

“I have sworn upon the alter of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

– Thomas Jefferson

 

Sources

  1. Melin challenges cops on pot opposition – Capitol Report
  2. Pot Legalization Crimps Funding of Drug Task Forces – The Wall Street Journal
  3. The drug war’s profit motive – The Washington Post
  4. Marijuana to remain illegal under federal law, DEA says – USA Today
  5. DEA Forfeitures List
  6. DEA Drug Schedules
  7. Minnesota Criminal Forfeiture – Institute for Justice

 

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