The Sanders Plan to Legalize Marijuana Does More Than Legalize Marijuana

Concerns about a marijuana monopoly are not unfounded (source).

by Thomas Neuburger

"Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
—John Ehrlichman, Chief Domestic Advisor for Richard Nixon

In the welter of plans from the welter of Democratic primary candidates, this should not be missed. Bernie Sanders' plan to legalize marijuana does exactly that — he will take it off the Schedule I list of controlled substances by executive order and not add it to the Schedule II list (as Biden would do), leaving it completely unregulated nationally.

But the Sanders plan also does more. He will start to repair the damage done to millions of people, mainly those of color, by conviction of marijuana "crimes." In addition, a third part of his plan will prevent the marijuana industry from becoming (or being dominated by) Big Tobacco.

Here are the pieces in detail.

Legalizing Marijuana Immediately

From Sanders plan:

As president, Bernie will:

Legalize marijuana in the first 100 days with executive action by:

• Nominating an attorney general, HHS secretary, and administrator for the DEA who will all work to aggressively end the drug war and legalize marijuana
   
• Immediately issuing an executive order that directs the Attorney General to declassify marijuana as a controlled substance
  
  
  • While Congress must aggressively move to end the war on drugs and undo its damage, as president Bernie will not wait for Congress to act.
     
• Passing legislation to ensure permanent legalization of marijuana

I would expect most serious candidates to follow suit on this plan, but I trust Sanders more than almost any other candidate to follow through as a Day 1 action. Would this be a Day 1–type action for Buttigieg or Warren? I doubt it. O'Rourke perhaps would prioritize this, but he's not going to see the White House anytime soon without a visitor's pass.

Vacate All Past Marijuana Convictions

It's not enough — not by half — to simply legalize marijuana for the current generation of users. One of the greatest injustices in our history — the utter and deliberate devastation of millions of American lives, most of them people of color — was perpetrated on two past generations as well, starting with the generation that came of age under Richard Nixon.

Yes, deliberate devastation. Here's John Ehrlichman in a late-in-life interview confessing to this decades-old crime. Ehrlichman speaking (quoted here; emphasis mine):

“You want to know what this [the war on drugs] was really all about? ... The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

Bernie Sanders will do his best to undo this damage, starting with the living victims. Those who have died in prison or at the end of reduced or destroyed post-prison lives cannot, sadly, be made whole. They must remain on Nixon and Ehrlichman's account book forever. (For crimes like this, I do hope there's a hell.)

Here's what Sanders will do for the victims still alive (emphasis mine):

Vacate and expunge all past marijuana-related convictions.

• In a Sanders administration we will review all marijuana convictions - both federal and state - for expungement and re-sentencing. All past convictions will be expunged.
   
• Based on the California model, we will direct federal and state authorities to review current and past marijuana related convictions for eligibility. This review will include re-sentencing for all currently incarcerated with marijuana convictions. Following determination of eligibility or status, prosecutors will have one year to appeal or object, after which authorities will automatically expunge and vacate past marijuana convictions for all those eligible.
   
• Federal funding will be provided to states and cities to partner with organizations that can help develop and operate the expungement determination process, much like how California worked with Code for America.
   
• Allow people with marijuana convictions to contact the state to ensure the list did not miss them. And we will grant people with marijuana related convictions an administrative remedy, if after two years, the state has not taken action on their sentences and records.
   
• Revitalize the executive clemency process by creating an independent clemency board removed from the Department of Justice and placed in the White House.
   
• Ensure a just reentry for people leaving incarceration as detailed in Bernie’s Justice and Safety for All plan.

All this is promised by executive action on Day 1, or as near to Day 1 as can be managed.

Invest Revenue from Legal Marijuana into Communities Hardest Hit by the "War on Drugs"

As the legal marijuana industry grows — and it will get a massive boost from immediately 50-state legalization — tax money that results from it must be used properly. For Sanders this means returning that money to the hardest hit communities.

From the plan:

Ensure that revenue from legal marijuana is reinvested in communities hit hardest by the War on Drugs, especially African-American and other communities of color.
With new tax resources from legal marijuana sales, we will:

• Create a $20 billion grant program within the Minority Business Development Agency to provide grants to entrepreneurs of color who continue to face discrimination in access to capital.
   
• With this revenue we will also create a $10 billion grant program to focus on businesses that are at least 51% owned or controlled by those in disproportionately impacted areas or individuals who have been arrested for or convicted of marijuana offenses.
   
• Provide formerly incarcerated individuals with training and resources needed to start their own businesses and worker owned businesses, and guarantee jobs and free job training at trade schools and apprenticeship programs related to marijuana businesses. [...]
   
• Use revenue from marijuana sales to establish a targeted $10 billion USDA grant program to help disproportionately impacted areas and individuals who have been arrested for or convicted of marijuana offenses start urban and rural farms and urban and rural marijuana growing operations to ensure people impacted by the war on drugs have access to the entire marijuana industry. [...]
   
• Create a $10 billion targeted economic and community development fund to provide grants to communities hit hardest by the War on Drugs.
  • We will also ensure that every community in the country has the resources they need to address our opioid addiction crisis and prevent the abuse of other hard drugs. And we will work with states to fund and pursue innovative overdose prevention initiatives.

Eliminate barriers to public benefits for people who have interacted with the criminal justice system, including licenses and contracts, based on prior records, and eliminate drug testing requirements from future benefits and ensure people cannot be removed from public housing for marijuana use.

• We will also direct agencies to remove all references to marijuana that limit people’s ability to access government services and we will eliminate the consequences of a marijuana record related to immigration.

Legalization without reparations is simply cruel, benefiting the unpunished at the expense of the already broken and destroyed. Sanders plan includes reparations.

Prevent Marijuana from Becoming Big Tobacco

One of the greatest fears of many who watch the marijuana business grow is that it will become yet another rip-off billionaire industry dominated by a few players who charge what they please and buy laws and regulations that outlaw or disadvantage smaller entrepreneurial enterprises from participating. (For examples, see here and here).

Fears of a "neoliberal response" to the prospect of marijuana decriminalization are not unfounded. Do you want Coca Cola, Disney, or RJ Reynolds to gain control of the marijuana market? Each of them, and many many more, would like to.

Bernie Sanders' plan addresses that possibility.

Ensure Legalized Marijuana Does Not Turn Into Big Tobacco

Big Tobacco is already targeting the marijuana industry for its profits. As president, Bernie will not allow marijuana to turn into Big Tobacco. He will:

• Incentivize marijuana businesses to be structured like nonprofits. 
  
  • We will provide resources for people to start cooperatives and collective nonprofits as marijuana businesses that will create jobs and economic growth in local communities.
     
• Prohibit products and labels that target young people.
   
• Ban companies that have created cancer-causing products or guilty of deceptive marketing.
   
• Ban tobacco/cigarette corporations from participating in the marijuana industry.
   
• Institute market share and franchise caps to prevent consolidation and profiteering.
   
• Regulate the safety of marijuana products by granting the federal government regulatory authority. Partner with USDA to establish safety inspection and quality control processes for growers and producers.

A comment about point three above: Punishing companies for past bad behavior is decidedly non-neoliberal, and just a start in my view for how these companies should be treated. If a living breathing person committed premeditated murder, what would the punishment be? Now what if that deliberate murderer were a non-breathing corporate person? Should the sentence be less?

Jeffrey Dahmer killed fewer than twenty people. He was incarcerated for life and later beaten to death by a fellow prisoner. How many hundreds did Ford Motors kill with its exploding Pinto? How many millions does Big Tobacco continue to kill? Should any company with this kind of past be rewarded with the gift of the next big profit opportunity, or should it be shut down instead ("incarcerated for life") and their executives prosecuted as breathing deliberate killers?

Other parts of Sanders' platform deal with forbidding monopoly practices, and they would apply here as well. But making explicitly sure that a vibrant marijuana industry is not quickly dominated by a de facto monopoly of its own would be, dare we say it, a breath of fresh air.
  

Surveillance Nation: How DEA Agents Search and Seize Property from Amtrak Passengers

Cops can do anything they want in modern America. This is from a 2015 Washington Post piece entitled "Cops took more stuff from people than burglars did last year." Notice the jump in seizures near the end of Obama's first term.

by Thomas Neuburger

As you listen to the panicked fear that the U.S. government will turn authoritarian under Trump, consider the following story about the DEA and drug surveillance on the Amtrak Southwest Chief, the long train between Chicago and Los Angeles.

To "keep you safe," this is what cops get to do:

DEA Agents Ambush Amtrak Passengers With Controversial Searches and Seizures

by Amy Martyn

A few hours characteristically behind schedule, Amtrak’s Southwest Chief rolls into Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the small station that it shares with the Greyhound bus service on the edge of downtown.

Most people step off to stretch their legs or have a cigarette during the layover, the longest smoke break in the entire trip. That’s when two plainclothes agents come aboard the train on a rainy day in March 2019.

One agent walks to the back of the aisle in the first coach car and waits, quietly observing. The other is tasked with getting people to talk and open their bags. His name is Jarrell, or Jay, Perry, and he’s done it hundreds of times before.

Perry is white and looks like he’s in his fifties. He’s bald and slightly overweight, with a weightlifter’s build to compensate, and he’s dressed in a baseball cap, a gray sweatshirt, and jeans. He’s not carrying a visible warrant or a train ticket and has no drug dog with him. When passengers reboard, they seem oblivious to his presence.

Today, he seems confident that he will find someone on board carrying drugs — or at least a substantial amount of money. He flashes a smile and a badge. A young, disheveled man in a seat by the entrance to the car agrees to let Perry search his three bags. The agent flips through the man’s luggage with tactical speed.

The author goes on to note a number of things about these tactics. I've highlighted them in the passage below:

It’s legal for Perry to search people without probable cause, a warrant, or a dog because travelers supposedly realize that they have the right to decline to submit to his searches. Perry and others in his interdiction unit have testified that they receive manifests ahead of time listing the passengers who will be arriving in Albuquerque. The courts have ruled this is also legal-- functioning like a helpful tip sheet on whom to question.

More problematically, Perry has been captured on surveillance footage boarding empty Greyhound buses and pulling bags out of the checked luggage bin. One clip captures him pressing on a bag so aggressively that he appears to be tackling it. But he stops short of opening the bag, which would be blatantly unconstitutional. Several people that Perry has seized cash from insist that they are not drug couriers and, in fact, were never criminally charged as such, though that didn’t help them get their money back.

Perry is not the only cop riding the rails. His tactics offer a case study in how law enforcement targets mass transit in the war on drugs, generating thousands of busts and a steady stream of revenue from seized assets.

To summarize:

     • You can be searched without probable cause, because it's assumed you know you can refuse (but if you do refuse, you're asking for "extra attention" and perhaps a trip to an interrogation room downtown).

     • Amtrak gives passengers lists to DEA agents ahead of time (because they know whose side they're on).

     • Your checked baggage may be searched without your knowledge (illegal, but try and stop them).

     • They can seize your cash if they have reason to suspect you're a courier (if you you're carrying "too much" money, this could be you).

     • Seized cash is part of the lifeblood of the system.

Yes, these tactics do produce arrests. But breaking into every home in every neighborhood in Los Angeles — and a great many Bel Air mansions as well — without warning or a warrant would also produce arrests, the same number or more.

Yet are these illegal tactics justified by these arrests, and given the state of civil (not criminal) asset seizure in this country, consider how strong the incentives are for cops to continue these practices. The DEA has treated the Southwest Chief and other Amtrak trains as a trout farm to fish in for dealers, methods be damned, and has done so since at least the 1990s according to the article, when Bill Clinton was president, and the practice continued unabated through Barack Obama's presidency as well.

This, Surveillance Nation, is the country Democrats are desperately trying to protect ... from Trump.

The Genesis of This Practice

How did this practice, surveilling Amtrak trains and seizing the assets of its passengers, begin? That's an interesting story on its own:

[DEA agents'] presence on the Southwest Chief and other passenger Amtrak trains is a known phenomenon that goes back decades, or at least back to the mid-1990s. That’s when an unknown DEA agent first approached an Amtrak secretary for information about the itinerary of a passenger who was under arrest.

The Amtrak secretary started using his access to Amtrak’s reservation system to regularly look for people who “might be planning to transport illegal drugs or money,” based solely on subtle clues like one-way itineraries for private bedrooms, trips booked on short notice, trips booked by third parties, and trips paid in cash. For each drug bust or cash seizure that the DEA made thanks to this information, the Amtrak secretary was rewarded a cut of the proceeds.

The person who recruited the Amtrak secretary as a DEA snitch described him to Department of Justice auditors in 2015 as “one of the most valuable interdiction informants the DEA has ever known.” ...

The Amtrak Police Department learned about the arrangement in 2014, and by that time, the Amtrak secretary had amassed $854,460 from the DEA for his work snitching on riders.

When the Amtrak police finally heard about this practice, they were upset, but not for the reason you'd expect — "Amtrak police were unhappy because they were cut out of the deal."

Welcome to America, same as it always was for a good long while. I can think of only one Democratic candidate for president under whom this won't get worse. Most of the rest, for all their other virtues, want to keep us too "safe" to be trusted to protect us from our protectors.
  

Hickenlooper Might Be Worse Than Biden On Marijuana Policy, But Hickenlooper Isn't A Serious Contender And Isn't A Threat To Pot Smokers The Way Biden Is

Joe Biden-- The Lesser Evil

All the Democrats running for president claim-- to one degree or another-- that they favor legalizing marijuana nationally... except former Colorado Governor John Frackenlooper, who fought against marijuana legalization when his own state ignored him and passed it by referendum. (He campaigned against Amendment 64 but he passed 55.32% to 44.58%. It garnered 1,383,139 votes. The most votes Frackenlooper ever got for anything he's run for was 1,006,433 (49.30) when he was reelected governor in 2014. Now he's pretending to run for president, knowing full well he won't even make it into the top tier in Colorado, where is very much disliked, in part because of his anti-marijuana approach.

The other candidates, like I said, all say they favor legalization. Do they though? On Thursday, Marijuana Moment pointed out that Biden's as full of shit on marijuana as he is on everything else. While he was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he helped shape drug policy "during an era of heightened scaremongering and criminalization [and] was among the most prominent Democratic drug warriors in Congress for decades. And while many 2020 Democratic candidates have evolved significantly on drug policy-- and particularly marijuana reform-- over the years, Biden has barely budged. While he’s recognized the long-term harms of certain pieces of legislation he supported and has made some efforts to attempt to repair that damage, overall he’s maintained a firm opposition to cannabis legalization-- a stance that sets him far apart from every other major Democratic contender." There are virtually no issues Biden has been good on without being forced into a change of heart. In general, he's better than Trump, but that's a low bar, especially for people are don't cotton to the Democratic Party's repulsive policy of forcing voters to pick between the lesser of two evils. Biden is truly the lesser evil candidate. The are virtually no prominent Democratic politicians with worse instincts than Status Quo Joe.

A look at Biden’s record on marijuana policy over past decades reveals a politician whose views on drugs are mostly set in stone and increasingly out of touch with lawmakers in his party and voters across the political spectrum. He’s sponsored some of the country’s most punitive drug legislation, including the notorious 1994 crime bill. In some cases, he has addressed the consequences of his anti-drug legislative activism. But a closer examination exposes patterns: he has long maintained that drugs should be illegal across the board, that the criminal justice system is well-equipped to handle drug offenders and that regulating marijuana is a mistake.

The 1980s was a time of extraordinary upheaval for U.S. drug policy, with lawmakers pushing numerous bills meant to scare people away from using controlled substances by way of propaganda and threats of incarceration. Biden was among the loudest and most extreme voices backing anti-drug measures. While there has been a shift in tone over the years, his track record will likely be a point of contention on the campaign trail.

Biden introduced the Comprehensive Narcotics Control Act of 1986. The wide-ranging anti-drug legislation called for the establishment of a cabinet position to develop the federal government’s drug enforcement policies-- a role that fits the description of the “drug czar” position, a term the senator coined in 1982 and which was subsequently created to lead the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP).

“We need one person to call the shots,” Biden said at the time, while also criticizing the Reagan administration’s anti-drug efforts, saying “their commitment is minuscule in terms of dollars.”

The bill would have also expanded Justice Department authority to seize assets in drug cases, impose mandatory minimum sentences for offenses involving certain amounts of controlled substances, increase other drug penalties and add new substances to the CSA. It also authorized appropriations for the U.S. Department of Defense for “enhanced drug enforcement assistance”-- an early indication of what would become an increasingly militarized drug war-- and asked the military to “prepare a list of defense facilities which can be used as detention facilities for felons.”

Further, the legislation would have required the secretary of the Interior to create a program to eradicate marijuana on Indian territory. It also included a provision for Congress to urge the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs to create a new international convention “against illicit traffic in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances,” and called for “more effective implementation of existing conventions relating to narcotics.” It also proposed setting aside money for the development of “herbicides for use in aerial eradication of coca,” which would later become a key part of the controversial Plan Colombia program.

...Another expansive anti-drug bill the senator introduced was called the Federal Crime Control Act of 1989. Among other things, the legislation would have expanded asset forfeiture authorities, required individuals charged for certain drug crimes to be held for sentencing or appeal rather than released on bail and mandated that the attorney general “aggressively use criminal, civil, and other equitable remedies…against drug offenders.”

...Biden also introduced the National Drug Control Strategy Act in 1990. It included a number of jarring provisions meant to deter drug use, including the establishment of “military-style boot camp prisons” that could be used as alternative sentencing options for people convicted of drug-related offenses who tested positive for a controlled substance at the time of an arrest or following an arrest.

The legislation also called for a requirement that people pass a drug test as a condition of probation or parole before a sentence is imposed, and also subsequently submit to at least two drug tests. It would also require federal employees working in a division that deals with children to pass a background check, specifying that any drug conviction on a person’s record is barred from employment.

Then there’s the propaganda provision of the bill, under which the director of the ONDCP would be required to “provide resources to assist members of the motion picture and television industries in the production of programs that carry anti-drug messages.”

If that wasn’t enough, the bill would also have authorized appropriations under the Arms Export Control Act and the Foreign Assistance Act to be used to train and assist military and law enforcement in their anti-drug production and trafficking operations. A separate provision would have encouraged the Central Intelligence Agency to enhance human intelligence that could be used to combat international drug trafficking.

Biden introduced a bill on capital punishment in 1990 that was later amended to include a provision known as the Drug Kingpin Death Penalty Act, which called for the imposition of capital punishment for anyone who killed someone while carrying out a federal drug offenses and was the head of a criminal enterprise who qualified for mandatory life imprisonment.

“There is now a death penalty,” he said later, in a 1991 floor speech. “If you are a major drug dealer, involved in the trafficking of drugs, and murder results in your activities, you go to death.”

In that same speech, he touted the expansion of civil asset forfeiture, saying the “government can take everything you own, from your car to your house to your bank account.”

The proposal also increased penalties for certain drug offenses committed near schools or colleges and directed the attorney general to “develop a model program of strategies and tactics for establishing and maintaining drug-free school zones.” It declared that drug offenses committed by juveniles would be treated “as offenses warranting adult prosecution,” set aside funds to create a national drug and related crime tip hotline and authorized “payment of awards for information or assistance leading to a civil or criminal forfeiture.”

The Senate passed that amended legislation, and Biden was among those who voted in favor of it.

The Biden-Thurmond Violent Crime Control Act of 1991, which the senator sponsored alongside segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC), proposed prohibiting people with “serious drug misdemeanor” convictions from purchasing firearms and creating a mandatory five year penalty for firearms possession by “serious drug offenders.”

An amended version of the bill, which Biden voted in favor of, also made federal marijuana laws more punitive by reducing “from 100 to 50 the number of marihuana plants needed to qualify for specified penalties” and stipulated that people convicted of three felony drug charges should handed a sentence of life imprisonment without release.

Additionally, the bill would have increased penalties for the use of a controlled substance in public housing, expanded the definition of “drug paraphernalia” under the CSA to include things like scales and syringes and prohibited the advertisement of Schedule I drugs such as cannabis.

In 1993, Biden filed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, a bill that would have required the director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts to establish a drug testing program for federal offenders on “post-conviction release.”

It also would’ve increased penalties for those convicted of drug distribution in “drug-free” zones and ban advertising “which aims to illegally solicit or sell drugs.”

...In 2003, Biden sponsored a bill to amend the CSA to “prohibit knowingly leasing, renting, or using, or intentionally profiting from, any place…whether permanently or temporarily, for the purpose of manufacturing, storing, distributing, or using a controlled substance.” The Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act, which later became the Reducing Americans’ Vulnerability to Ecstasy (RAVE) Act, has been blamed for making festivals and music events where drugs like MDMA are taken less safe by discouraging operators from providing on-site harm reduction services out of fear they’d be prosecuted for knowingly allowing drug use. He cosponsored a later version as well.

Biden also cosponsored a number of controversial anti-drug bills filed by other lawmakers during his time in the Senate.

He signed on as the lead Democratic cosponsor of Thurmond’s Criminal Code Reform Act in 1981. The bill would have increased penalties for trafficking in drugs including “large amounts” of marijuana. The next year, Biden also appeared as the lead Democratic cosponsor of Thurmond’s Violent Crime and Drug Enforcement Improvements Act, which would have expanded federal asset forfeiture authorities, made it so juveniles can be transferred to adult court for certain violent or drug-related crimes and established a new office to “plan and coordinate drug enforcement efforts” for the federal government.

Another Thurmond bill that Biden signed on to in 1983 proposed expanding federal asset forfeiture authorities.

In 1998, as states began making moves to allow medical cannabis, the senator cosponsored a resolution “in support of the existing Federal legal process for determining the safety and efficacy of drugs, including marijuana and other Schedule I drugs, for medicinal use.”

“Congress continues to support the existing Federal legal process for determining the safety and efficacy of drugs and opposes efforts to circumvent this process by legalizing marijuana, and other Schedule I drugs, for medicinal use without valid scientific evidence and the approval of the Food and Drug Administration,” the resolution states. It also expressed concerns about “ambiguous cultural messages about marijuana use are contributing to a growing acceptance of marijuana use among children and teenagers” and voiced support for federal authorities enforcing prohibition “through seizure and other civil action, as well as through criminal penalties.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), chief sponsor of the resolution, described it this way: “Our resolution addresses the effort by the drug legalization lobby in this country to get marijuana and other dangerous drugs on the streets, in our homes, and in our schools. These groups have been trying to do this for years. Sadly, they have been somewhat successful.”

Biden was an original cosponsor of another infamous drug-related bill, the Anti Drug Abuse Act of 1986. The House version, which he voted in favor of, was ultimately signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. It’s best known for creating sentencing disparities for crack versus powder cocaine; it imposed a 1:100 crack to power cocaine ratio, whereby one gram of crack was equivalent to 100 grams of powder cocaine under the law. The provision led to significant racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

...In a 1974 article from The Washingtonian, the senator-- at that point 31-years-old, making him the youngest member of the Senate-- tried to distance himself from being identified as liberal. While he argued he was progressive on “civil rights and civil liberties,” he said “when it comes to issues like abortion, amnesty, and acid, I’m about as liberal as your grandmother.”

“I don’t think marijuana should be legalized,” he said.

About three and a half decades later, in 2010, the then-vice president said, “I still believe it’s a gateway drug. I’ve spent a lot of my life as chairman of the Judiciary Committee dealing with this. I think it would be a mistake to legalize.”

“The punishment should fit the crime,” he said. “But I think legalization is a mistake.”

...Throughout his own time in the White House as vice president, Biden consistently took an opposing stance on marijuana reform proposals. He said in 2012 that he had “serious doubts that decriminalization would have a major impact on the earnings of violent criminal organizations, given that these organizations have diversified into criminal activities beyond drug trafficking,” for example.

During a trip to Mexico, Biden discouraged Latin American countries from legalizing marijuana, arguing that while he understood their interest in pursuing alternative approaches to curb prohibition-related violence, the pros of legalization were outweighed by the cons.

...In 2007, Biden defended his vote in favor of additional border wall fencing by peddling a myth that has since been echoed repeatedly by President Donald Trump, telling CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he “voted for the fence related to drugs.”

“A fence will stop 20 kilos of cocaine coming through that fence. It will not stop someone climbing over it or around it,” Biden said, despite the fact that the vast majority of drug smuggling occurs at legal ports of entry. “And it is designed not just to deal with illegals, it’s designed with a serious drug trafficking problem we have.”

Asked in 2016 whether he regretted promoting the 1994 crime legislation, Biden said “not at all.”

...But by January 2019, as Biden was gearing up for a presidential run, he seemed less bullish about defending his role in shaping the criminal justice world that emerged out of the 1990s.

“I haven’t always been right,” he said. “I know we haven’t always gotten things right, but I’ve always tried.”

He added that sentencing disparities for crack and cocaine “trapped an entire generation” and added the the legislation “was a big mistake when it was made.”

Biden's crimes against our communities were so long ago that he should be forgiven now? Sick! Bernie denounced Biden's catastrophic crime bill in 1994 on the floor of the House of Representatives. No prominent Democratic politician today has done more to harm African-American communities than Joe Biden, though many black Democrats-- and white Democrats-- think Biden didn't exist before Obama embraced him and made him vice president. This video is from a quarter century ago, when Biden was already firmly established as one of the four or five very worst Democrats in the U.S. Senate. Today in his 7th bid for the presidency, Biden is trying to escape the consequences of his long, sordid record. Trump will be howling about it daily if Biden gets the nomination.




EJ Dickson, writing for Rolling Stone warned stoners that "when it comes to marijuana legalization, Biden is basically the worst candidate in the race. Biden is better than Trump. That's it; that's basically the only positive thing I can say about it. And I've been following his career for 4 decades. By now, you have probably guessed marijuana legalization activists are about as enthusiastic about him as I am.

In a statement sent to Rolling Stone, Erik Altieri, the executive director of the marijuana reform organization NORML, criticized Biden for his “abysmal record when it comes to marijuana law reform, ending our failed war on drugs, and addressing mass incarceration.” “Biden’s views are far out of step with the American public and he holds the worst record on cannabis related policy of any individual currently running for the Democratic or Republican nomination,” Altieri said.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Mason Tvert, spokesperson for the Marijuana Policy Project, agreed, stating that Biden “has historically been one of the most aggressive drug warriors in Congress” and does not appear to have reversed or even softened his stance on marijuana, despite the majority of the Democratic candidates vocalizing their support for legalization. “He‘s very out of touch on this subject compared to other candidates,” Tvert says. “Quite frankly, he seems to be a bit more out of step on this issue than President Trump,” who has reportedly said that he would sign legislation ensuring states have the right to determine whether or not to legalize marijuana.

...Literally for decades, Biden has asserted his opposition to marijuana legalization. As early as 1974, the then-31-year-old senator was making a case for his career-long brand as a dyed-in-the-wool centrist, claiming that “when it comes to abortion, amnesty and acid, I’m about as liberal as your grandmother,” specifically citing his belief that he did not believe marijuana should be legalized. (Again, this was in 1974.) He has maintained this position throughout his career, though, voicing the long-debunked theory in 2010 that marijuana served as a “gateway drug” to other illicit substances. In 2014, he doubled down on this belief, firmly telling a Time magazine interviewer that he did not support marijuana legalization, though he did note that “the idea of focusing significant resources on interdicting or convicting people for smoking marijuana is a waste of our resources.”

Biden has also voiced his opposition to marijuana as a form of pain management. In 2007, he said that while he supported ending raids on medical marijuana users, he believed that “there’s got to be a better answer than marijuana. There’s got to be a better answer than that. There’s got to be a better way for a humane society to figure out how to deal with that problem.”

...As of now, it’s a bit unclear: Biden has not issued many public statements on marijuana policy reform in the past few years, and as of his now his campaign website doesn’t make any specific reference to his current drug policy views. It does, however, make veiled references to drug policy reform by stating that Biden advocates for “reform[ing] the criminal justice system to prioritize prevention, eliminate racial disparities at every stage, get rid of sentencing practices that don’t fit the crime, and help make sure formerly incarcerated individuals who have served their sentences are able to fully participate in our democracy and economy.”

To be fair to Biden, it seems he has reversed some of his hard-line drug policy stances: he has said he opposes mandatory minimum sentencing, and in 2007 he also introduced legislation meant to counteract the racial disparities in sentencing for crack versus cocaine possession (a law that, again, he was instrumental in ushering in). “The school of thought was that we had to do everything we could to dissuade the use of crack cocaine. And so I am part of the problem that I have been trying to solve since then, because I think the disparity is way out of line,” he said by way of an apology in a 2008 Senate hearing.

But given the increasing support for marijuana law reform in particular (according to one 2018 Gallup poll, nearly 66% of Americans support legalization), Tvert believes that if Biden is to stand a chance against other Democratic candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (who have been vocal in their support of legalization), he’s going to have to publicly atone for his drug warrior past and soften his views on cannabis. “A lot of Democrats are looking forward and trying not to maintain someone with old failed policies and this is a perfect example,” he says, adding, “the folks [Biden] needs to energize are most likely the ones he thinks should be treated like criminals for using marijuana.”

Joe Biden is the opposite of a leader. If he changes his mind-- or claims to have-- it's because of polling and focus group testing and he will change his mind back and forth with the winds of public opinion. If you're thinking of backing this guy in the primary, you're out of your mind... or whatever you're smoking is too strong for your tolerance.

A Dual Scourge: Prescription Drugs And Con-Man Donald J. Trumpanzee

A few years ago the CDC reported that the 10 highest prescribing states for narcotic painkillers are in the South, with Alabama, Tennessee and West Virginia leading the nation. Last year it was reported that unscrupulous drug manufacturers and distributors have pumped hundreds of millions of prescription opioids into small-town West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, encouraging drug addiction. These communities have something in common besides rampant drug use and drug overdoses: these communities took Trump at his word when he said he would make their problem a top priority of his administration if they elected him-- and they helped do just that. Of the 100 counties in the U.S. addicted to prescription drugs, 99 were Trump counties-- the only one that wasn't being an Indian reservation. In fact, study after study has shown that the same misery and hopelessness that fuels prescription drug abuse fuels support for Trump, authoritarianism and fascism.

This week, NPR reported that Trump and his regime have decided not to emphasize treatment but to go back to the same old GOP prescription: the pointless, failed war on drugs. Greg Allen reported that "more than three months after President Trump declared the nation's opioid crisis a public health emergency, activists and healthcare providers say they're still waiting for some other action" while the regime has "given no signs it's developing a comprehensive strategy to address an epidemic that claims more than 115 lives every day. The President now says to combat opioids he's focused on enforcement, not treatment."

Trump spent just over a minute of his 80-minute State of the Union address talking about opioids. In a speech this week in Cincinnati, he had a few more comments. The opioid epidemic, he said, "has never been worse. People form blue ribbon committees. They do everything they can. And frankly, I have a different take on it. My take is you have to get really, really tough, really mean with the drug pushers and the drug dealers."

The President's mention of "blue ribbon committees" sounds like a slam on one he convened last year, chaired by former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie-- the President's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. The commission issued more than 50 recommendations. The administration has so far followed up on just a few of those recommendations.

Some officials and care providers who work on the frontlines of the opioid crisis, however, are scathing about what they see as a lack of action from the White House. Former Congressman Patrick Kennedy, who served on the White House opioid commission, says he's "incredulous" that, after declaring a public health emergency in October, the President still hasn't requested any money from Congress to combat the epidemic.

"I mean this is just a mental health crisis of the first order," Kennedy says, "and this administration has done nothing."

...Here are things critics point out the administration hasn't done:

• There is still no head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. In October, Trump's nominee to the position, Rep. Tom Marino, R-Pa., withdrew his name after reports linked him with a bill that limited the DEA's ability to investigate abuses by opioid manufacturers and distributors.
• President Trump still hasn't nominated anyone to head the Drug Enforcement Agency.
• The administration hasn't asked Congress for any new funding to address the opioid epidemic.

Roughly 64,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2016, and data from the CDC indicates deaths are rising. Kennedy says what's needed is a coordinated federal response similar to the one in the mid-1990s-- when the U.S. spent $24 billion a year to address the HIV/AIDS crisis.

"We're talking about a major league crisis and they're taking credit for little things, while the whole country is burning down," Kennedy says.

Instead of a big boost in funding, the Trump administration is focused, in many cases, on cutting spending.

In the 2018 budget, the President recommended cutting the Office of National Drug Control Policy budget by 95 percent, and may do so again this year.

"It's very hard to make sense of," says Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry at Stanford and former policy adviser to the drug czar's office in the Obama administration. "I mean, it's like closing a fire station in the middle of a wildfire."

A law signed by President Obama that designated a billion dollars to help states combat opioids runs out of money this year. Humphreys has seen no sign President Trump intends to ask Congress to renew that funding.

"The 2018 budget had a $400 million cut to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration which is the lead agency that funds treatment in the United States," Humphreys says. "So, the administration's impulse seems to be not to spend more — in fact to spend less."

The White House is preparing to act on one of the recommendations of its opioid commission-- that it launch a campaign to educate the public, especially young people, on the dangers of opioids. The campaign is being developed not by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, but by a team in the White House led by Kellyanne Conway.

And as far as helping prescription drug addicts with marijuana, Trump seems to be allowing Jeff Sessions to go on a jihad against legal medical marijuana, something progressive Democrats-- though not elderly establishment Democrats-- are ready to go to war over, as we saw yesterday. If you would like to help the campaigns of the progressive Democrats campaigning on a platform that includes legalization of marijuana, Blue America has a page dedicated to that specifically which can be accessed by clicking on the ActBlue Green Wave thermometer on the right. Remember, even the latest poll from Fox News found a record number of voters nationally favoring legalization. The poll shows 59% of voters in support of legalizing marijuana, which is up from 51% in 2015, and 46% in 2013 (the first time the poll ever addressed the issue). Only 26% favored making "smoking marijuana" legal in 2001. Today just 32% of voters agree with right-wing crackpot and KKK supporter Jeff Sessions that marijuana should be illegal, down from 49% in 2013.

Trump Doesn't Smoke Pot Or Drink Booze-- So What's He On?

Look, maybe Trumpanzee wasn't lying when he claimed he got calls from the head of the Boy Scouts-- telling him his embarrassing speech was the "greatest speech" ever and from Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto telling him fewer people are crossing the border because of Trump policies. Sure both the Boy Scouts and Mexico denied those claims-- but that doesn't mean that Trump was necessarily lying or bullshitting. Many observers think he was-- is-- just plain delusional and senile. Even the Regime's chief misleader, Huckabee's contemptable daughter, now admits those calls never took place. There was a call with Peña Nieto, though-- but it was in January and the the Washington Post just got it's hards on the transcript of that and exposed other Trump lies. For expample, he told Mexico's president he won New Hampshire-- he didn't; Hillary did-- because it is a “drug-infested den." Republican Governor Chris Sununu was moved to immediately release an official statement contradicting Trump: "The President is wrong. It’s disappointing his mischaracterization of this epidemic ignores the great things this state has to offer... We are already seeing positive signs of our efforts as overdoses and deaths are declining in key parts of the state. In spite of this crisis, New Hampshire remains the best place to live, work and raise a family."

One way to view this is through the lens of Quinnipiac's new poll. Only 33% of Americans approve of the jon Trump is doing. Only 34% say he's not a liar, the same percentage who say he has good leadership skills. Most important though is that only 26% of Americans say they are proud of him--rather than embarrassed by him.

But there's an entirely different poll that was just released that has nothing-- at least nothing directly or nothing yet-- to do with Trump's incredibly shrinking approval numbers. A Harvard-Harris poll indicates that only 14% of Americans-- the Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III core-- believe marijuana should be illegal. 86% of Americans now think marijuana should be legalized either for medicinal purposes or for personal use and medicinal purposes. Does Trump's unsympathetic comments about New Hampshire being a "drug infested den" show he doesn't have the kind of empathy it takes to understand, let alone deal with, the opioid crisis that is devastating the counties that were most supportive of Trump's election?

And just when Trump's crackpot rogue Attorney General, who he's apparently afraid to fire, is preparing to crack down on states that have liberalized their marijuana laws in the way that their citizens have demanded. Sessions keeps trying to deceitfully link marijuana use to violent crime and wants to see tougher sentences for growers, sellers and users, even in the increasing number of states where it is legal.



Hoping to shake his well-earned reputation as a corporate whore, Cory Booker introduced a pot legalization bill last week (on Facebook). Adam Levin, CEO of High Times said that "Though I think it's a bit early to get hopes up, this new bill is the first of what I imagine will be many proposed legislations to help curb the unjust war on drugs, and the resulting disproportionate arrest rates for people of color. We all know this war has presented very real, troublesome consequences for American citizens for decades, and it's time for this abolition to end. Nonviolent drug offenders are losing their lives daily, and with medicinal and recreational legalization sweeping the country, these victims can't be overlooked."

I can imagine Sessions at the head of an army of DEA agents invading Nipton, California, which is being bought-- the whole town-- for $5 million by American Green Inc., a maker of cannabis products. 120 acres with a general store, a hotel, a school building and mineral baths being re-imagined as "a pot-friendly tourist destination." Tiny Nippon, a former mining town, is next to the Mojave National Preserve, just across the border from Nevada, in San Bernardino County.

American Green plans to include a new facility to manufacture water infused with CBD, the cannabis component that is typically associated with reducing pain and inflammation. The new Nipton will also have a production site for edible marijuana products, retail stores, and artist-in-residence programs.

The project reflects a shift toward making marijuana more appealing to a broader audience. This includes reaching beyond the stereotypical stoner aesthetic and making products with milder doses per serving size. American Green has also sought to expand sales by building a vending machine that uses biometric scanners to ensure customers are of age.

The industry needs this wider acceptance to fuel its growth. Cowen & Co., a provider of investment and banking services, is optimistic companies will succeed and forecasts the legal weed business growing to $50 billion by 2026 from $6 billion in 2016.

Even as companies seek to expand the market, they face a more existential threat-- looming government intervention. While President Barack Obama implemented policy stating it would not go after operators in states where the plant had been legalized, the Trump administration is not a fan. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has made clear that he sees no use for the plant, saying at one point “it’s not a healthy substance.”

American Green, which trades over the counter for a fraction of a penny, had lost about half its value this year through Wednesday. That followed a rally in 2016 as more states moved to legalize the drug. The shares’ value jumped by more than 40 percent on Thursday, but are still worth well below 1 cent.

Companies like American Green are opting to hope for the best. As long as policy remains unchanged, Shearin expects the company’s investment will be returned and the town will be profitable.

“The Gold Rush built this city,” Shearin said. “The Green Rush can keep it moving the way people envisioned it years ago.”

Me And Pot And Jeff Sessions

A little background: I was a major stoner... in the 1960s, when I was in college. I stopped using drugs on January 1, 1969 sitting in my van on the border between Pakistan and India. I had no interest in smoking pot after that-- other than when Neil Young delivered a new album to me personally-- I worked at his record label. Once I was up at his ranch listening to his new songs and I took a couple of hits and got wasted and there was a huge buffalo staring at me on the other side of a window. Other than those times, pot was off my radar. And I have to admit, when I heard about "medical marijuana," in the back on my mind, though I was 100% fine with the idea of it, I figured it was some kind of scam for legalization (which I've always favored). Then I got cancer.

The doctor fights the cancer-- and my doctor at City of Hope is the best there is-- but the patient fights the side effects of the treatment. I still am to this day-- bigly. So after chemo all sorts of lovely things happen to you. Three that mad life barely worth living were pain, inability to sleep and inability to eat. I wasted away and people stared at me on the street. And when you can't sleep and can't eat and feel pain everywhere all the time... well, then you don't heel. Someone suggested marijuana oil. I didn't want to get high. Then I found out they have some that has the "medical" benefits without the psychedelic factor (more or less). My doctor told me she thought it was a good idea.

I took some oil one night before going to bed. I slept the first solid 8 hours I had managed in months. I woke up and yelled to my sister, "I'm starving; can you make some scrambled eggs with toast?" One time and I was sleeping and eating! The neuropathy pains dissipated and after a couple weeks I put the marijuana oil away and didn't use it again.

The next step for me was a stem cell replacement operation. That often causes pneumonia, which in turn, can leave the patient with a chronic cough for life. I don't want to dwell on this but think of the chronic cough like this: writhing on the floor, forcefully kicking your legs so you can try to breath.

The head of City of Hope's pulmonary department worked with me for months to find the right formula to stop the coughing, which was making normal life impossible for me. Eventually we found it. There are 5 daily components and when I've experimented my taking any one of the 5 out of the mix, the cough is back in a day, in all its glory. One of the components is my old friend medical marijuana.

And that brings us to... a recent trip abroad. How to bring the oil? It's legal enough in California... but the TSA are, generally speaking-- and I know its politically incorrect to generalize like this-- are a pack of assholes. The wrong guy with the wrong dog and-- BOOM!-- I could have wound up in jail instead of on my plane.

And, in turn, that brings us to... Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, the biggest asshole other than Betsy DeVos and Scott Pruitt (and maybe some others) in the Trumpanzee Cabinet. This isn't about Putin-Gate or even about the Attorney General's penchant for lying under oath. It's about this headline from Think Progress: Sessions asks Congress to let him prosecute medical pot shops, patients.

While recreational marijuana companies remain in precarious territory under federal law, Congress has for years protected medicinal cannabis suppliers and patients from the boots and rifles of federal agents.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is begging lawmakers to rescind that safe harbor for medical pot--  and claiming that the very prescription painkiller epidemic that medicinal cannabis helps stunt should prompt the government to crack down on doctor-prescribed marijuana.

“I believe it would be unwise for Congress to restrict the discretion of the Department to fund particular prosecutions, particularly in the midst of an historic drug epidemic and potentially long-term uptick in violent crime,” Sessions wrote in a May letter to congressional leaders which was obtained Monday by marijuana legalization advocate Tom Angell. Its authenticity was confirmed Tuesday by the Washington Post.

At one point in the letter, Sessions cites a recent Colorado case where licensed medical marijuana distributors were caught moving cannabis out of the state--  but those people have been indicted and face criminal charges in the state, undermining Sessions’ argument that the case necessitates federal assistance.

Congress has been “restrict[ing] the discretion,” in Sessions’ words, of federal law enforcement to hammer medical weed for three years. Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Sam Farr (D-CA) led a successful bipartisan push to attach language to congressional budgets prohibiting the Department of Justice from going after medicinal cannabis in states which have made the treatment legal.

Sessions invokes the opioid epidemic as a reason to shred the bipartisan consensus that medical cannabis ought to be left alone. But that is backwards: Research indicates that medical cannabis is a valuable resource in the fight against that wave of addiction and fatalities tied to heroin and its pharmaceutical cousins.

In states where medical weed is legal, the average doctor prescribes 1,826 fewer doses of prescription painkillers each year, economist David Bradford found in research published last summer in Health Affairs. “That translates into many millions [fewer] doses per year in those states,” Science noted. Similar research from University of Michigan doctors found a potential 64 percent decrease in opioid use among patients who are prescribed cannabis.

While the existing research is promising, findings remain limited--  in large part because the absolutist prohibitions Sessions so adores in federal policy have made it all but impossible to conduct broad, thorough scientific research on cannabis for decades.

But even if the eye-popping hard evidence against Sessions’ proposal is limited in scale, it’s not hard to guess which class of pain medication poses the greater public health risk. Opioid and heroin overdoses kill tens of thousands of Americans per year. Zero people have died of a marijuana overdose, ever. Making it harder to get medical pot in states where lawmakers and voters have made it available will necessarily push more pain patients onto the rocky path of prescription drug use.

Sessions’ desire to keep the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment off this year’s budgets is predictable. The attorney general is an ardent drug warrior who once lamented in a 2016 hearing that state legalization has undone decades of public effort “to send that message with clarity that good people don’t smoke marijuana.” Decades earlier in his public service career, Sessions allegedly joked that he didn’t think the Ku Klux Klan were so bad “until I found out they smoked pot.”

In the intervening years, Sessions was a relentless opponent of any effort to relax laws around pot at either the state or federal level. His nomination as Attorney General was widely expected to herald a reversal of years of wait-and-see federal law enforcement policy toward populist efforts in the states to make recreational adult use of cannabis legal and profitable.

But until this week, it was less clear if Sessions’ pot crusade would also extend to medicinal flowers, pills, ointments, and edibles. It will--  unless Congress stops him.

It amazes me that I could have brought pounds of truly dangerous prescription opioids with me without having to spend 2 seconds worrying about it but because of reactionaries like Sessions, I had to spend weeks worrying about a little harmless marijuana oil. These are some comments from cannabis industry executives after Sessions' letter was made public:

• Derek Peterson, CEO of Terra Tech: "We hope that attorney general Jeff Sessions would really take time to learn about the industry, its economic as well as social benefits. Taxing and regulating cannabis is the only way to take the money out of the hands of the cartels. We've seen decriminalization work and we know the drug war is a failed effort. Cannabis has proven to be a relatively safe medical option as well as a recreational social alternative. We have an opportunity to set precedent and lead a global effort to change our perspective on drug use."

• Emily Gordon, In-House Counsel at Simplifya: "Sessions continues to push marijuana policy stances that are not only at odds with the opinions of the majority of Americans-- a recent national poll showed that 73% of Americans oppose Federal interference in state marijuana regulation - but which contradict data on the positive impacts legalization has had in states across the country. If nothing else, this latest attack may spur a renewed push among marijuana businesses to continue to be good citizens and neighbors in their communities, and to make sure their operations are in full compliance with all state and local laws, which can only help to take away any legitimacy that could be possibly be given to this attack and any future attacks Sessions may make."

• Jeffrey Zucker, President of Green Lion Partners: "Jeff Sessions and other members of the administration are showing their clear ignorance regarding the war on drugs. It’s not just common sentiment, it’s fact that cannabis has the capacity for medical benefit and that enforcement has disproportionately targeted minorities. Active markets around the country are providing incredible benefits for patients, tax revenues for states, and jobs for thousands of people. Most of the country seems to understand these things now, but unfortunately it seems that those in power are the least informed. It’s time for the administration to look at the facts and to be open-minded and willing to learn about the truth behind the cannabis movement."

• Bryan Meltzer, Partner at Feuerstein Kulick LLP: "Attorney General Sessions’ letter to Congress is a reaction to the extension of the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment and is consistent with his prior hostile position on legal medical marijuana. If anything, the letter indicates that while the DOJ disagrees with the amendment, it will respect the will of Congress. And given the broad bi-partisan congressional support and overwhelming public support for state-regulated medical marijuana, it is much more likely that Congress will continue to move forward on this issue, including by fixing the tax and banking issues that currently plague the industry, rather than moving backward by appeasing Sessions’ request."

Why Tom Marino Really Turned Down Trump's Offer To Make Him Drug Czar

Wednesday Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA) withdrew his name from consideration as drug czar for Señor Trumpanzee's crackpot Regime. Marino cited his mother's heart problems and dementia as the reason. Were it not for his mother's condition, Marino said he would have accepted Trump's offer to head the drug policy office. "I can't live in D.C. Monday through Friday" as he would have to as drug czar, he said. "I have to be here for my mother." The family has been told she has six months to a year to live, he said. "Due to a critical illness in my family, I have, with regret and the utmost respect, informed the White House that I must withdraw my name from consideration for Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy... I will remain in Congress and continue to support President Trump in whatever way I can."

Marino was the first Pennsylvania congressman to endorse Trump. He's got a bizarrely gerrymandered district that twists and turns from up where New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania meet near Port Jervis at the confluence of the Neversink and the Delaware rivers, north and west through Susquehanna, Bradfords and Tioga counties, due south through Williamsport and down into Mifflin and Snyder counties. The PVI is R+12 and Obama lost the district badly both times. Hillary did even worse-- winning just 30.2% of the votes there. It was Trump's second-best performing district in the state. Marino was reelected against Democrat Michael Molesevich 208,106 (70.3%) to 87,956 (29.7%). Ever since Marino beat reactionary Blue Dog Chris Carney in 2010 he's never been challenged by the DCCC and has sailed to reelection. (That's another ancillary problem with the DCCC recruiting Blue Dogs-- not only do they fail to hold their districts once Democrats find out they're not actually Democrats, they destroy the Democratic brand for multiple cycles.) Democrats barely even hold out in the one blue county in the district, Monroe.

But now people are beginning to wonder if Marino really did withdraw his name because of his mother's health situation. It turns out he probably saw Trump's proposed budget-- the one that, according to Politico's reporting "cuts about 95% of funding for the Office of National Drug Control Policy, effectively ending its mission as the lead agency in charge of combating the opioid crisis and other drug epidemics." That was the job Señor Trumpanzee was offering Marino. Thanks... but no thanks.

The office, which received $388 million in federal funding in fiscal 2017, would only receive $24 million in fiscal 2018, according to the budget proposal from the White House. The agency’s high-intensity drug trafficking program, which received $254 million in federal funding in 2017, and its drug-free communities support program, which received $100 million, would be completely zeroed out under Trump’s proposal.

The budget would also cut almost $7 million in salaries, leading to projected cuts of as many as 33 full-time equivalents. About 70 people currently work at the drug control office.

"These drastic proposed cuts are frankly heartbreaking and, if carried out, would cause us to lose many good people who contribute greatly to ONDCP's mission and core activities," acting Director Rich Baum wrote in an internal email to staff that was shared with Politico.

Baum said that he was working with the White House to save the office's funding, but two sources within ONDCP said that would be unlikely, given that the proposal cleared the White House's budget office this week.

Trump has vowed to address the nation's opioid crisis. But defunding the drug control office "is like removing the tip of the spear," said one source within the agency, noting that ONDCP is the only agency responsible for spearheading the government-wide response to drug use.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), who co-authored a major opioids bill that became law last year, forcefully opposed the proposed cuts to the office.

"We have a heroin and prescription drug crisis in this country and we should be supporting efforts to reverse this tide, not proposing drastic cuts to those who serve on the front lines of this epidemic,” he said in a statement.

...Trump recently created a new White House commission on opioids, which is led by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and would be supported by Trump's 2018 budget. Advocates urging a more aggressive treatment agenda have said the White House commission is redundant and may encourage a throwback to the "war on drugs" approach to fighting opioid addiction.

Maybe his life as a lazy, carefree backbencher seemed more appealing to Marino than being Trump's budget-less Drug Czar inside the smoothly-functioning machine.

Will Trump Allow Sessions To Set The Agenda On Marijuana?

A new poll from CBS News may come as something of a shock to Trump Regime Attorney General Jeff Sessions who is working on amping up the failed and disastrous Republican war on drugs. The poll shows that 61% of Americans think marijuana use should be legal, a 5-point increase from last year and the highest percentage ever recorded by CBS. An overwhelming 88% favor medical marijuana use! But significant numbers of Republican elected officials haven't moved out of their grandparents' perspective and are completely out of sync with where the country is on marijuana use. Even most Republicans (63%) are against Sessions' plans to interfere with marijuana sales in states that have legalized it-- as do 71% of all Americans.

65% of respondents say marijuana is less dangerous than most other drugs and only 23% buy into the ancient GOP claptrap that legalizing marijuana leads to an increase violent crime. Most of the opposition to legalization comes from the elderly, a group still brainwashed by Republican Party pieties going back decades and long disproven.

Earlier today we were talking about the hot special election race in Montana. One metric we used was how Trump beat Hillary in the state 279,240 (56.2%) to 177,709 (35.7%). On that same day, it's worth noting, that a ballot measure making it easier to buy medical marijuana in Montana passed 291,334 (57.9%) to 212,089 (42.1%). Yeah, that's right-- medical marijuana was more popular in Montana than either Trump or Clinton.

One long-time Trump crony and advisor, Roger Stone, violently disagrees with Sessions' approach and is urging Trump to slap Sessions down. Soon after Trump was named president, Stone wrote that one of the most controversial decisions Trump will have to make is whether to continue the federal stand-down by the Justice department "in which DOJ does not enforce federal marijuana laws where they contradict state laws legalizing the legal use and sale of marijuana in the 37 states where it is currently legal in some form. Canceling the order by Obama attorney general Eric Holder to stand down on marijuana would cause a major dislocation in multiple states that are currently budgeting millions in state revenue from the taxation of marijuana and un-employing hundreds of thousands of people currently working in an industry legalized by the states." He urged Trump to "view this as a business man; U.S. government cannot turn back the clock on federal marijuana law enforcement."

Trump has always been pro-medical marijuana. His views on legalization have been, as with most things, muddled and incoherent. In an interview with the Washington Post just before Halloween, 2015 candidate Trump said "In terms of marijuana and legalization, I think that should be a state issue, state-by-state. Marijuana is such a big thing. I think medical should. And then I really believe we should leave it up to the states. And of course, you have Colorado. There’s a question as to how it’s all working out there, you know? That’s not going exactly trouble-free." At CPAC the same year, Trump said legalization "is bad... Medical marijuana is another thing, but I think it’s bad, and I feel strongly about it."

Stone also pointed out that Florida's Amendment 2 (approving medical marijuana) was on the ballot the same day Trump won the state's 29 electoral votes. 4,617,886 Floridians voted for Trump (49%). But 6,518,919 Floridians (71.3%) voted to legalize medical marijuana. That's a very significant disparity. Stone warned that "If, after winning the election, Donald Trump listens to the likes of Chris Christie and Jeff Sessions he risks alienating his base and his newly won supporters in a very tangible way. Both Sessions and Christie come from 'Old World' War on Drugs thinking. Criminalized marijuana has directly lead to the persecution of countless individuals, the vast majority of whom are poor and minorities. That this was the desired result of the designers of the system of criminalization cannot be reasonable doubted."

Stone keeps warning Trump about Sessions' reactionary instincts. Early this month he was at it again:

Jeff Sessions states his position plainly: “Good people don’t smoke marijuana”. This plainly false statement, made in all earnestness, clearly demonstrates how far from the mainstream Sessions is on this topic. Very few Americans would agree with him on this, as evidenced in the wave of legalization that washed over the United States over the past five years. More importantly, sick people use marijuana whose medicinal value is proven yet strangely still denied by the Federal Government.

In many States, the road to medical legalization was hard fought, often with State Constitutional amendments requiring over 60% of the popular vote. The Trump Administration should be mindful that the recreational marijuana measures that passed in several states all passed this same way, with overwhelming popular support. This was clearly the Will of the People. It is not Jeff Sessions place to prosecute his version of morality and President Trump should not allow him to do so.

Just the idea of Sessions re-ignites the marijuana drug war has caused consternation within the fledgling State Legal Marijuana Industry. Investments have floundered, confusion introduced, and little in the way of relief has been forthcoming from the White House. This chaos has opened the door for the Cartels.They were being driven out of shriveling black markets, but are now able to reconstitute their distribution networks, filling the gaps left open by patchwork Federal enforcement and by the industries fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

Cracking down on legalized marijuana will starve States out of much needed revenue streams. Colorado is a great success story when looked at from a tax base point of view, and much needed revenue is coming in to fund education and government services. Colorado generated over sixty-six million dollars in tax revenue in 2015 and has increased by double digits’ year over year since. Losing that money will put them deep into the red and cause a burden upon the whole State, as well as throwing thousands of people out of work while destroying a billion-dollar industry.

I urge President Trump to honor his word and keep his promise, irrespective of what his Cabinet members may say.  There are so many other ways that law enforcement can be put to good use rather than to persecute harmless farmers and shopkeepers who are abiding by State law.

Meanwhile, last week the Canadian Government announced new legislation to legalize marijuana, fulfilling a promise Trudeau made while he was campaigning. By the summer of 2018 it should be legal in Canada for people to possess small amounts of pot and there will be guidelines in place for growing and selling marijuana.

Canadian companies are making a play for investment dollars to head north. InMed Pharmaceuticals, a Canadian pre-clinical biotechnology company saw its stock double after the government announced legalization plans.

When compared to the American market, which did in fact grow 34% last year, people are saying that “the industry has matured to a certain point,” indicating that there are still many obstacles on the road to full legalization in the states. Obstacles such as political players like Attorney General Jeff Sessions releasing a memo that his newly created task force will be “evaluating marijuana enforcement policy,” or the fact that the CJS amendment that prohibits the Department of Justice from using any funds to interfere in state medical cannabis programs and bars ongoing federal cases-- expires April 28th. If it is not renewed, patients, caregivers, doctors, and industry workers abiding by their state's medical cannabis law will no longer be protected from federal prosecution.

One big difference is the Canadian cannabis industry offers investors more compelling opportunities because medical cannabis is legal at the federal level. The government’s plan to legalize cannabis has made several licensed medical cannabis producers attractive investment opportunities to institutional investors, hedge funds and investment banks. Additionally, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau supporting full legalization and bankers, lawyers and accountants operating without fear of prosecution making sure medical marijuana producers have access to these much-needed services.