Posted on 08/28/2006 3:45:15 AM PDT by Wolfie
Denver DEA Rep: Don't Legalize It
Colorado -- The Drug Enforcement Agency is stepping into the political fray to oppose a statewide ballot issue that would legalize possession of small amounts of marijuana.
In an e-mail to political campaign professionals, an agent named Michael Moore asks for help finding a campaign manager to defeat the measure, which voters will consider in November. If passed, it would allow people 21 and older to have up to 1 ounce of marijuana.
In the e-mail, which was sent from a U.S. Department of Justice account, Moore also writes that the group has $10,000 to launch the campaign. He asks those interested in helping to call him at his DEA office.
That has members of Safer Colorado, the group supporting the marijuana legalization measure, crying foul. The government has no business spending the public's money on politics, they said.
Steve Fox, the group's executive director, said members of the executive branch, including the DEA, should leave law-making to legislators.
"Taxpayer money should not be going toward the executive branch advocating one side or another," Fox said. "It's a wholly inappropriate use of taxpayer money."
Jeff Sweetin, the special agent in charge of the Denver office of the DEA, said voters have every right to change the laws. And the law allows his agency to get involved in that process to tell voters why they shouldn't decriminalize pot.
"My mantra has been, 'If Americans use the democratic process to make change, we're in favor of that,'" he said. "We're in favor of the democratic process. But as a caveat, we're in favor of it working based on all the facts."
Sweetin said the $10,000 the committee has to spend came from private donations, including some from agents' own accounts. He said the DEA isn't trying to "protect Coloradans from themselves" but that the agency is the expert when it comes to drugs.
"The American taxpayer does have a right to have the people they've paid to become experts in this business tell them what this is going to do," he said. "They should benefit from this expertise."
That argument threatens states' rights to make their own laws, says Safer's Fox.
"By this logic, federal funds could be used by the executive branch without limitation to campaign for or against state ballot initiatives," he said. "Our federalist system is based on the notion that states can establish their own laws without federal interference. The DEA ... is thumbing its nose at the citizens of Colorado and the U.S. Constitution."
State and federal law take different approaches to whether government employees should be allowed to mix work and politics.
Colorado law prohibits state employees from advocating for or against any political issue while on the job, and also bars those employees from using government resources — including phone and e-mail accounts — for any kind of political advocacy.
But federal law — which governs what DEA agents can do — is different.
The Hatch Act, passed in 1939 and amended in 1993, governs most political speech. Passed in the wake of patronage scandals in which the party in power would use government money and staff to campaign against the opposition, the law is mostly aimed at partisan political activity, said Ken Bickers, a University of Colorado political science professor.
While the act's prohibitions against on-the-job partisan politicking are strict, for the most part it allows federal employees to take part in non-partisan politics. And it's mostly silent on non-partisan ballot measures.
"I'm not sure that this doesn't slide through the cracks in the Hatch Act," Bickers said. "The Hatch Act isn't about political activity — it's about partisan political activity. Since this is a ballot initiative, and there's no party affiliation attached to it, that part of the Hatch Act probably wouldn't be violated."
An official from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, the federal agency charged with investigating violations of the act, said in a statement last week that the DEA hasn't run afoul of Hatch.
Do you think it was legal for Janet Reno to come to Missouri to help support the campaign to defeat the CCW Initiative? Do you think HCI's rhetoric about "Libertarians and gun nuts" made it good?
I belong to a political party that actually takes on the responsibility and accountability of governing, unlike the Libertarians. We were able to get Reno out of office.
LOL! You mean the one that spends like drunken sailors on bridges to nowhere? Oh, yeah, that REAL responsible!
If you can't or won't answer the question, don't waste my time with self-aggrandizing evasions.
I still criticize my party, but someone has to run the government in the meantime.
From the article:
"I'm not sure that this doesn't slide through the cracks in the Hatch Act," Bickers said. "The Hatch Act isn't about political activity — it's about partisan political activity. Since this is a ballot initiative, and there's no party affiliation attached to it, that part of the Hatch Act probably wouldn't be violated."
If you want to maintain that this is really about Republicans and Libertarians, then it is partisan politics, and they are clearly in violation of the law.
Since the Libertarians are more a circus act than a political party, I'd say you wouldn't have much of a case.
So you've chosen to join a political party that decides for itself who is and isn't a legitimate political party, and is a law unto itself? How predictable.
Now, who said I was a Libertarian? For that matter, where is the Libertarian Party mentioned anywhere in this article? Is there some reason you don't want this thread to stay on topic?
So if you want to get back on topic, who else could be sponsoring the referendum other than Libertarians and drug addicts? Latin American communists have also been known to support drug legalization in the United States. Could they be in on it too?
How does speculating on who might be supporting it have any bearing on the DEA getting involved in it directly?
Well yeah, provided that state law doesn't conflict with federal law -- which this state law certainly does. You jerk.
The New Deal as self-evident truth, back up by personal insults. How original - not.
If I arrest you for driving drunk, am I not exercising my pre-emptive right of "self-protection"?
I wouldn't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with someone thinking they could shoot me for drinking in my home (which I do), or smoking weed in my home (which I don't do).
As to shooting you for any reason, I haven't seen anyone propose that.
Nice job of lifting it out of context (typical). The poster was saying he had the right to kill me premptively. That's far different than a citizen's arrest out in public.
Crying foul?! Oh, that's rich!
During the City of Denver marijuana legalization campaign (I-100), this was the same group that sponsored billboards showing a woman with a black eye and a man standing behind her, presumably her abuser. The message below said, "Reduce family and community violence in Denver. Vote Yes on I-100."
(The theory being that if men smoked marijuana instead of drinking alcohol, domestic violence would drop. Not that there is one single study that shows alcohol drinkers would switch to marijuana. Nowhere did the billboard mention that I-100 legalized marijuana.)
"Crying foul" indeed.
Some freedom, huh?
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