Congressman vs DEA: Rep. Steve Cohen Calls Out DEA Official On Marijuana BS

[DeSwiss]

The Young Turks ·Published on Mar 10, 2014

"A senior U.S. drug enforcement official refused to state whether alcohol was more or less dangerous than marijuana during a House oversight committee hearing on Tuesday.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) asked DEA deputy director Thomas Harrigan about recent comments made by his colleague, DEA administrator Michele Leonhart.

At the National Sheriffs' Association's annual meeting in January, Leonhart blasted President Barack Obama for saying that marijuana is no more dangerous than alcohol. She added that the hemp flag flown over the Capitol on July 4 was the lowest point of her career."

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/05/watch-senior-dea-official-refuses-to-say-whether-weed-is-more-dangerous-than-alcohol/

Cenk Uygur (http://www.twitter.com/cenkuygur) and Ana Kasparian (http://www.twitter.com/anakasparian) of The Young Turks discuss this story.

- So if cannabis is presently residing upon the Schedule I listing of prohibited drugs, meaning that it has absolutely no medicinal value whatsoever -- then why is the Federal government issuing patents to pharmaceutical companies for synthetic derivatives of cannabis' constituents that will then later be used for medicinal purposes?

Oh, I keep forgetting -- that's right. It's because we have a bunch of weak-ass, lying POS's who're running things now. I keep forgetting that because I'm hoping that this is all a nightmare and I'll wake up........

''Not telling the truth to someone…in my opinion...is a crime. But what is a bigger crime is knowing that we are being lied to and turning our head the other way. We become the bigger liars.''

~Christina Rasmussen

[The Wizard]

1. The DEA is a dumping ground

where politicians send friends for do nothing jobs. After they get there they have but one purpose, expand the bureaucracy, facts be damned. It's a bureaucratic crap hole that has outlived its usefulness, and as such should be streamlined to work in coordination with scientific fact, not superstition that has been ruining the lives of innocent people since William Randolph Hearst saw hemp cultivation as a threat to his profits from wood pulp paper production of which he cornered the market for newsprint.
If our elected officials can't rein in this rogue agency, then maybe it's time for them to go.
And for the knickers in a twist bunch that gets the vapors at the mention of the words legalized marijuana, here's your gateway, right here (Use your imagination to envision "here.".

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Saying the DEA has outlived its usefulness is sorta like

saying the Hanta virus has outlived its usefulness.

[DeSwiss]

3. All LEO jobs......

...are do-nothing jobs for the most part, in my experience. It's the nature of the profession. No one should have a job telling people what to do at the point of a gun. Especially considering who most of these idiots and PTSD-damaged individuals that they're giving these guns to. On the few occasions where a LEO does do something positive for someone, all their corruption is forgotten -- for a few minutes -- until they can violate someone else's rights again.

- It never takes long..........

''If we don't fight now, I guess we'll have to be kicked until we do.....''

[DebJ]

4. I presume you are referring to DEA employees in administrative/directing capacities,

and not to the agents themselves? I have a close relative who is a DEA agent, and I can assure you it is incredibly difficult to become a DEA agent. Currently this person is working, for likely the next few months, 7 days a week, up to 12 hours a day. Yep, sounds like a loafer to me!

Also, the DEA group that this person works with never fools with marijuana. Sometimes, well fairly often, marijuana is also found while working on meth or heroin cases, but the focus has never been marijuana in this person's ten years with the agency.

Two of my sisters-in-law have adult (30's) sons who each have had incredibly destructive lives because of drug addiction. Neither of them can function in any type of employment whatsoever. One of them has spent all but a few months of his adult life in prison.... and only recently were there any drug charges. No, he was threatening his grandmother's life, stealing from his mother's bank account ($10,000) with a forged check, and doing other lovely things while under the influence. Both young men were diagnosed as bipolar.... but only after ten years of a complete hell of a life on street drugs ... and now they are dual diagnosis. But it's too late. They are hooked, and miserable. It is so very, very sad.

Their mothers' opinion is that since my relative's efforts DO stop people from dying and trashing their lives...not all of them, not even the majority of them, but if my relative helps to save the life of one person, well, Thank God.

As a restaurant manger for many years, I had a lot of employees whose lives were going down the toilet because they couldn't function due to drug use. And I am not saying this was marijuana use, (although I did see that with two individuals). Sure, hell, lets legalize it all! Let the party begin!

Bash away now. But I have a right to insert my opinion and my experiences. And I mourn so much for those wasted lives. And those suffering from drug addiction were mourning for their own lives, too. I was a sympathetic manager who did what I could to help them, though most of the time all I could give them was an ear. So very, very sad.

[MindMover]

5. No need to trash on you or anyone else for that matter ...

Last edited Tue Mar 11, 2014, 06:09 PM - Edit history (11)

there is enough trashing going on by way too many in authoritative positions.

I assume your relative is working in some undercover operation ferreting out these scoundrel heathenish drug dealers/makers known as meth-heads or cocaine cowboys or heroin junkies and I dare say his/her work is extremely dangerous, fraught with uncertainties and little time for self.

and, I am so sorry that there endeavors could not be more productive in regards to elimination of this curse of drugs on our society so as to have helped save or contribute to saving your own relatives from the dregs and debauchery known as ADDICTION. ..and I would ask you to ask yourself, is the present system of deterrence (arrest and incarcerate) working to cure ADDICTION.?

but as you and others well know, we have many drugs in this world, some made legal and some made illegal by our laws. What our laws cannot change however, is human nature and the desires we have to change (some say enhance) our God given senses. Whether those human senses are changed or enhanced by legal or illegal means is all done by personal choice.

In your statement made about there mothers opinion, I would ask you to consider an alternative, a more humane and proven more cost effective than current methods of handling ADDICTION, which is what all of us are the most concerned about, which is ADDICTION.

The first what if,

What if all drugs were legal.

1. No person arrested/sent to prison for possession

2. No need for the infrastructure and personnel involved with incarceration (prisons, etc.)

What if all the monies spent on the above structures and personnel were spent on humane treatment of these unfortunate ADDICTED individuals.

What if we could spend more monies on education and pre-treatment of children before they were introduced to these substances.


Your experiences with these ADDICTED individuals through your vocation and life experiences are important and your own frustration in not being able to help other than listen could have been substantially different if the above what if's were operational at the time of your interactions with these unfortunate individuals...and thank you for listening.


We control the What if's in the above scenarios, or in other words, it is our choice to continue on the present course of arrest and incarceration or do we stop the insanity and become more of what we all aspire to be, a more loving human being.


I know who does not want all drugs legal .... drug lords, drug dealers, certain politicians, pharmaceutical companies, privatized prisons, and ... certain businesses that profit from incarcerating our minorities (poor and of color) .... and .... prohibitionists (religious or otherwise) ....



to be continued.

[DebJ]

12. Oh I agree about the need for addiction treatment.

I also don't have an issue with decriminilization for possession of small amounts of drugs.
And the DEA doesn't focus on individual users. That's the local police, and it is the local police
who are most likely to be implementing their own bigotry, etc, on the job.


But for the leeches who sell massive amounts of cocaine, heroine, meth, I WANT them to rot in jail, and
have everything they owned taken away. Like the man in the Caribbean who had his own island and his
own navy (17 nations worked to take him down).

[MindMover]

14. I ask you what policies, laws, societal issues allow these leeches to even exist ...

If that drug lord had not had the market, "no man in the Caribbean" ...

with the exception of our own drug lords, the lords of the pharm companies ...

I get where you are coming from, believe me, I have worked with hundreds if not thousands of addicts. and have no love for any person that deals death and destruction to another ... but I have had to rethink my position on legalization, mainly due to the failure of our current system ... arrest, incarcerate, rinse, repeat ....

[The Wizard]

8. The subject of the thread was

the willful ignorance of a bureaucrat from the DEA regarding marijuana laws. You may know someone whose experience with the agency is directed at hard drugs, but that is anecdotal and has nothing to do with the subject at hand.
Do bureaucrats have good cause to ignore scientific fact to protect their jobs? Do they willfully enforce unjust laws to protect their income? Are innocent victims sent to prison so as to keep a myth alive. Ignorance and superstition are not grounds for criminal prosecution, and as such immoral and detrimental to justice and the general welfare of the people. Otherwise we're no better than the Salem witch hunters.

[dougolat]

9. Well put! ...nt

[DeSwiss]

10. ....

[sorefeet]

6. The purpose of the DEA is

to perpetuate the drug war. To grow the drug problem. The DEA have caused the meth problem and heroin problem to be as bad as it is. Job security and more fear mongering to support the Prison Industrial Complex. The DEA is nothing but a corrupt organization.

[DeSwiss]

11. ''The fish stinks from the head.'' n/t

[freebrew]

7. I wish these asses would stop...

comparing cannabis to alcohol. It is not the same thing, not the same effect, nothing at all similar.

'Potheads' are not Tommy Chong's character. It isn't a central nervous system depressant, it doesn't affect one's reaction time or ability to drive, operate machinery or anything else.

The idea that the cops are now involved in making driving while 'stoned' illegal is a slap in the face to everyone that has worked hard to legalize it and make it available to those that want and/or need it.

Yes, one can be too stoned to drive, but unlike alcohol, you know it and the sensation disappears quickly. It doesn't give anyone the false confidence of alcohol, it doesn't make your mind foggy, it doesn't impair your senses. Anyone that continues to promote these ideas has obviously no idea what the substance is all about.

I am still against legalization. There should be NO laws on the books relative to it. The efforts in Colorado, while making folks somewhat more aware, have also increased the price(ridiculously) for everyone else.

[DeSwiss]

13. I agree totally.

Even crabgrass and Echinacea contain small amounts of phytocannabinoids. And DMT! They've made DMT illegal, while at the same time DMT is a substance our brains manufacture.

- According to the DEA, being human is now illegal.