Posted on 07/13/2007 6:25:51 PM PDT by SubGeniusX
The nation's top anti-drug official said people need to overcome their "reefer blindness" and see that illicit marijuana gardens are a terrorist threat to the public's health and safety, as well as to the environment.
John P. Walters, President Bush's drug czar, said the people who plant and tend the gardens are terrorists who wouldn't hesitate to help other terrorists get into the country with the aim of causing mass casualties. Walters made the comments at a Thursday press conference that provided an update on the "Operation Alesia" marijuana-eradication effort.
"Don't buy drugs. They fund violence and terror," he said.
After touring gardens raided this week in Shasta County, Walters said the officers who are destroying the gardens are performing hard, dangerous work in rough terrain. He said growers have been known to have weapons, including assault rifles.
"These people are armed; they're dangerous," he said. He called them "violent criminal terrorists."
Walters, whose official title is director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said too many people write off marijuana as harmless. "We have kind of a reefer blindness,' " he said.
No arrests have been made so far in the four days of raids, the opening leg of what Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko has promised will be at least two straight weeks of daily raids.
He said suspects have been hard to find because their familiarity with their terrain makes it easy for them to flee quickly.
Although crews doing the raids are using Black Hawk and other helicopters to drop in on some of the gardens, Bosenko said they don't want to give the growers any warning of a raid.
"We try to move in under stealth," he said.
As of Thursday morning, Operation Alesia raids had resulted in the yanking of 68,237 young marijuana plants from public lands in Shasta County. Raids already have been conducted in Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, as well as on land managed by the U.S. Forest Service north of Lake Shasta and other public land near Manton.
The operation is being led by the sheriff's office and has involved 17 agencies, including the California National Guard and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. It's believed to be the largest campaign of its kind in the state, Bosenko said.
The operation is named after the last major battle between the Roman Empire and the Gauls in 52 B.C. That battle was won by the Romans.
With the blitz of marijuana gardens around Shasta County, Bosenko said officials hope to not only get rid of the pot, but also win back the land for the public that owns it.
"These organizations are destroying our lands and wildlife," he said.
Bernie Weingardt, regional forester for the Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Region, said the 28,000 acres believed to house illegal marijuana grows on national forest land throughout the state would cost more than $300 million to
revive.
"These lands must be cleaned and restored," he said.
His estimate is based on a National Park Service study that found it costs $11,000 per acre to pull the plants, clear irrigation systems, reshape any terracing and replant native vegetation, said Mike Odle, Forest Service spokesman.
While Walters didn't give specific goals for Operation Alesia, he said anti-drug agencies aim to cripple the organized crime groups that he said are behind the marijuana cultivation.
"This business we intend to put into recession, depression and put its leaders into jail," Walters said.
1. The article attributes the high number to civil war veterans who became addicted to morphine during the War.
2. The 400,000 opiate addicts works out to an addiction rate of 0.68%. (1880 pop. was 59,000,000). Compare that to the addiction rate to opiates OR cocaine of 0.5% in 1900. IOW, the addiction rate to opiates fell by at least 25% while remaining legal. If you toss out the cocaine addicts in the 1900 figure, thus making it an appes-to-apples comparison, opiate addiction would show a greater decline.
OK. But how many used cocaine or opium? Or is every user considered an addict? Do you consider every cocaine or opium user an addict?
I don't know. No. No.
No survey? An estimate? Just how did they estimate? Let's see -- oh, here it is. Ah, they interviewed drug arrestees then extrapolated.
They interviewed arrestees and did a urine test for cocaine and heroin to test for truthfulness.
So they interview arrestees, compensate for their truthfulness with some random number, extrapolate for the entire population, then simply assume three-fourths are addicts.
You left out the urine test again, so it's not "some random number". It's an important point, and you shouldn't leave it out.
The NSDUH survey shows 130,000 heroin users (at least once per month) in 2000 and 1.2 million cocaine users. If we assume 50% are addicts, that works out to .2% of the population, half the addicts of 1900.
Your figures from the self-surveys are unreliable according to the ONDCP:
"Cautious evaluation of this data is necessary because the NHSDA cannot accurately measure rare or stigmatized drug use, relying as it does on self-reporting and on people residing in households. In alternate research, the number of hardcore* users of heroin in 1998 was estimated to be 980,000,"
"Estimates of heroin use from the NHSDA are considered very conservative due to the probable underreporting and undercoverage of the population of heroin users."
________________________________________
Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, Oct 4, 2000:
"For example, numbers like heroin addiction. You can find numbers that go from 255,000 up to the one I'm currently using, 980,000, if I remember the last time we updated it, and those are all valid scientific studies."
--http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/symposium/panelmccaffrey.html
So, the government says its own household survey numbers are not reliable, and both the USDOJ and the Drug Czar say there are 980,000 heroin addicts.
Your numbers are junk.
“You say there was a big shift where pot growers all started cooking meth instead. I say that’s bs. There is no evidence of that. Meth use went up for a while in this country. It’s slowly but surely going down now according to government figures.”
I must admit that my statement about the shift from marijuana to meth was wrong and based upon a bad correlation between reduced marijuana production and increased meth before the OTC drugs crackdown.
The facts are that marijuana production in Oklahoma has gone down because of the improved interdiction methods developed there by law enforcement. They have teams that use Army “Air Assault” type tactics to get the remote fields. It has been quite effective. The fields are much fewer and smaller today than 10 years ago. The shift now has been to still use “Air Assault” tactics but to use herbicides on the small fields. This is information that can be obtained from the State of Oklahoma narcotics enforcement websites.
I believe you think this will drive the cultivation to greenhouses and indoor small crops. You are probably correct about this. The days of large cultivated fields are over. I don’t think that indoor cultivation will ever amount to much - a large scale operation would be interdicted.
Regarding meth labs. I believe they are also declining because of intensified interdiction and the drying up of OTC medications as a source for psueodofed. As as large source of drugs, you are correct that they only produce small quantities. They do present a horrible problem for those that have to clean up the HAZMAT left behind.
The comments about the recycling of urine for meth came from a “reliable” source of someone who works in the HAZMAT arena. However, it sounded “silly” to me also and I should not have repeated it. The cost to extract meth form urine seems to make this seem impractical.
It is obvious to me that any attempt to “convince” persons to stay out of the illicit drug use/production is wasted band width. I won’t attempt to do so anymore.
I will just close by saying that I agree with the current “Drug Czar” that those of you engaged in the illegal use, manufacture/cultivation, and distribution of “drugs” (to include marijuana) are in essence “terrorists” (to various degrees of culpability). To engage in these activities is open sedition against the legitimate U.S. Government and should be treated as such.
Our allies against the Taliban were primarily drug lords who were upset over that Taliban’s anti-opium efforts. It is true that the Taliban now profits from opium production, but we’d almost certainly encounter fierce opposition from neutrals and allies in Afghanistan if we tried to re-implement a ban on opium production.
http://opioids.com/afghanistan/
Whether or not marijuana production funds terrorism, their is no effective way to eliminate it. There is too great an economic incentive to produce and distribute it. It would be far better to legalize and regulate it so you can follow the money.
They’re now clinically insane in Washington.
Care to hear my nightmare? I am an end consumer of pot. I work 60 hours a week running a business and I have not missed a week of work in 4 years. I pay my taxes and bother no one.
A friend of mine introduced me to a woman who lived down the street from me. Her husband ran off and was living in Raleigh with a woman, left her and her son to fend for themselves. I was going over there to meet the woman a few nights a week. After the first week or so she says, “Kevin (the Wake County narcotics officer that lives across the street from me) is watching you.” As it turns out, he and her estranged husband are best friends and business partners. Over the next week or so, me and my friends all get pulled over and searched. I was pulled over by three cruisers and searched at * AM on the way to work because “We had an anonymous complaint you were drinking beer and blocking traffic across main street. This obviously required a search of my vehicle and person.
A week later on my day off, I get a battering ram through my front door and a dozen guys with HK’s and dogs tear my house up. I had set out my AK 47 to clean that day at the top of the stairs. Could have got a bullet in the brain for holding an AK as they came in. They stole every dollar I had in cash about $400. reported $16 dollars seized. Went through every file on my computer. Ripped up the front page of the Lawrence Mass. newspaper from the day FDR died. Took an antique Egyptian Hooka with Arabic writing on it. When I, handcuffed on the couch said it had never been used for pot I was told “we will test it at the lab, if it has no residue, You can have it back. “ I never smoked out of it. It is a tobacco hooka, not the same thing as a water pipe, and it reeked of tobacco. The hooka never appeared on any paperwork. Just dissapeared into a cops trunk.
So they must have found a load huh?
6 grams in one bag on the counter. I am apparently the first drug dealer in history who owns not a single plastic baggie and doesnt have a scale.
For evidence, they had an anonymous complaint and they pulled my trash. As soon as they found a seed, they had probable cause to believe there was a crime being committed in the house. So legally everything they did was hunky dory. $1,500 in bailbondsman fees, $1,500 for a lawyer, new door, cash gone, all my neighbors think I am a drug dealer, and after it all, I can’t be secure in my own home. Not being a drug dealer didn’t keep them from coming in before. Why should not being a dealer keep them away? The good news is 6 grams of marijuana was removed from the streets for only 5 digits or so in taxpayer money. My neighbor took care of the cat the weekend before. They hit her too. Try explaining to your 12 yr old daughter why she was in handcuffs with a submachine gun barell in her face and a cop screaming at her. Comicly, the only thing they found in that house was counterfeit cocaine in my friend’s 17 yr old son’s desk. A coincidence.
PLEASE FORGIVE ME IF I DONT GIVE A &&&& FOR THE WAR ON DRUGS AND TRADING MY RIGHTS AS A CITIZEN FOR A PUBLICLY FUNDED WAR ON A FRIGGIN PLANT
Want to hear karma? The Narc across the street, his partner ( who actually arrested me) and anouther narc (all white) were at an Applebee’s after a sting. An elderly black preacher took up 2 parking spaces when he parked with his granddaughter and wife (this is north carolina. The preacher always uses two spaces.) they pulled him out of the car, broke several ribs, maced him and gave him a concussion in front of his family as the wife was on 911 to get the police...The lawsuits have only just begun and I laugh a little on the inside every time it comes up! The first time i saw it in the paper I bust out laughing in a restaurant. For all I care, take your War on Drugs and stick it where the sun don’t shine.
As for domestic cultivation of marijuana, airborne interdiction efforts have been in place for decades. Marijuana growers don’t tend to cultivate large open fields, but they can still grow a lot in several smaller plots. For the most part that’s how they’ve been doing it in Mexico for a long time now too. The feds estimate that several thousand tons of U.S. grown marijuana make it to the illicit market in this country every year. Interdiction efforts only result in seizures of a small portion of that grown in this country. I think a lot of it that makes it to market makes it because law enforcement turn a blind eye. Corruption is rampant in a lot of the sparsely populated areas where outdoor marijuana growing is prevalent.
As for the increase in indoor growing, that’s a trend likely to continue. Partly this is because of domestic interdiction efforts, but it might also be because of the tightening of our borders. Mexican marijuana is apparently cheaper in my area than it has been in decades, but that may just be because we’ve had a huge increase locally in our Mexican population in recent years opening our area to new distribution networks and flooding our local illicit drug market with Mexican product. I’ve been reading and hearing through the grapevine that Mexican organized crime are bringing more people up to grow marijuana in this country because border security tightening has been making smuggling more difficult. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but if it is expect to see a lot more indoor grown marijuana.
I don’t think these grows are as easy to stop as you think they are. Up in Canada I believe most marijuana is grown indoors. Police find a lot of the grows, but still only a tiny percentage of them. Our local law enforcement interdict a lot of huge loads of pot on the highway, but still only a tiny percentage of those going down the road. Organized crime can afford to lose a few several hundred pound loads from time to time because their investment in the product is only a small fraction of what they’ll be able to sell it for (and just a very tiny fraction of what law enforcement will claim it is worth when they seize a load). These guys could tap into utility lines and steal electricity at several locations and it won’t really hurt their bottom line if they lose a few locations every year. This is going on in Canada right now and from what I understand it’s happening more and more in this country.
Indoor grown marijuana is very expensive compared to outdoor grown product. Regular compressed Mexican marijuana, the brickweed local law enforcement are always seizing, costs maybe five or six hundred a pound where I live, sometimes more, sometimes less. I was talking to a drug task force officer recently who told me he’s able to find pounds for $400 all the time now. Indoor grown marijuana is likely to cost thousands of dollars a pound. It costs a lot more to produce, but it retails for several times the price of regular commercial grade Mexican. It’s the fancy single malt Scotch of marijuana, and commercial grade Mexican is low priced beer in comparison. The fancy indoor grown stuff has “snob appeal” like an expensive bottle of liquor. It’s a lot more powerful than commercial grade marijuana, and a whole lot more expensive, but then again people don’t have to smoke nearly as much of it to achieve the desired effect so while it may costs several times what the cheap stuff costs those who use it aren’t necessarily going to be spending several times as much on what they’ll consume in a given period.
Most the indoor grows we see now in my area are tiny little operations by college kids or other rather benign types, but my bet is that we’re going to see a lot more involvement by organized crime in the future like they are seeing in Canada and in some parts of this country. And we’ll also see a lot more of the small grows. Two or three thousand watts worth of grow lights can be enough to produce several pounds of super expensive marijuana every eight or ten weeks or so, product worth thousands of dollars, and the electric bill probably won’t go up a hundred bucks a month. Most of the lights are devoted to flowering and they’re only on 12 hours out of the day. These smaller grows can be quite profitable for people and for the most part they are relatively undetectable and not likely to be discovered by law enforcement. Meth labs were a lot easier to find because there were always so many screw up tweakers involved with all of them who were likely to get arrested and lead police back to labs in hopes of keeping themselves out of prison. That and people involved with these labs were constantly on the prowl for more pseudoephedrine tablets and controlled chemicals and so on so they could keep batch after batch going and this suspicious activity was always leading police to labs. The guy with a little grow in his walk in closet or his basement or an extra bedroom isn’t likely to come under police radar unless he has a big mouth and tells a lot of people about his grow.
We are spinning our wheels fighting against the marijuana trade. Guys like our drug czar complain about all the new super potent marijuana on the market these days, when in fact it’s our policies that are encouraging people to grow indoors where they’ll have to focus on higher potency product so they can get a higher price to cover their much higher costs in producing the product. It’s not unlike Prohibition where hard liquor was much more prominent in the market than beer and wine than it was before or after the ban on alcohol. The more we drive marijuana production indoors, the higher average potency of seized marijuana will go. Prices may go up, but before long the market will be saturated with indoor grown product and prices will go down, which is exactly what happened in Canada when indoor growing really took off there.
I’m not one of those guys who wants to legalize all drugs. I think it would be a really bad idea to legalize the hard stuff like cocaine, meth, and heroin. Those super expensive drugs are just too addictive and those addicted cause a lot of serious harm to innocent people and society in general. The prohibition against these drugs does cause us problems, as some here complain, but I think we’d have worse problems if we made these substances cheaper and more available. The fight against pot though I think is not worth the trouble. It’s not harmless, but it’s nothing like these other drugs and it’s already relatively cheap and widely available. We’re just spinning our wheels trying to make it go away. Millions of people in this country smoke it. It’s everywhere. It’s far and away the most commonly used of all the illicit drugs. The last time the feds did a supply estimate they estimated that between 12,000 and 25,000 metric tons were available in this country in a year after law enforcement seized all they were going to seize. Feds and local law enforcement may seize a couple of thousand tons or more a year but they really aren’t even putting a dent in the overall supply. We’re filling up prisons, wasting a fortune, wasting a lot of man hours and valuable resources, all for naught. Pot is cheap enough that just about anyone can afford to do it, even to be a fairly regular user, and it’s so available that anyone who wants to do it would have no real trouble finding suppliers who can get it for him anytime he wants it. I really think that most people who want to smoke pot probably already do. What we have now is a thriving multibillion dollar marijuana industry that is entirely unregulated and run largely by organized crime who profit handsomely from it. The government would have a lot more control over marijuana if they just regulated the industry and taxed it similar to the way we do with alcohol now. It would create hundreds of thousands of legitimate tax paying jobs, generate tax revenues, and channel all these billions of dollars in profits to tax paying law abiding citizens rather than criminals.
No, it won’t. There is BIG money to be made. A “small” operation can make $25,000 every 3 months.
They can compensate for that. No method is 100% accurate. But you're missing the most important point.
What method was used to arrive at the 1900's, 400,000 figure you're using as your baseline for all your comparisons? The same formula? Urine testing of criminals? Arrestee interviews?
My guess is that they did some sort of survey back in the 1900's. Now, what's more accurate -- comparing an old survey to a new survey or comparing an old survey to some modern, contrived formula?
Surveys may be inaccurate. But they are good at showing trends, since the inaccuracies "wash out" are then irrelevant. Meaning my numbers are better when comparing a 1900's survey to today's survey.
Now, if you wish to go back to some data from the 1900's that uses arrestee interviews and then apply your same formula with the same "truthfulness" factors -- then you have a valid argument. Right now you got nuthin'.
It's obvious to you that I am confusing drug use/addiction with terrorist activities? Come on. You cannot cite one example of this.
Anti-social? Sure. In addition to being illegal (how much more anti-social can you get?), drug use/addiction is immoral, unhealthy, a burden to society, a corrupting influence on children -- well, you know all this. And if you deny it, then surely my words aren't going to convince you.
"Frankly, i have a difficult time seeing how somebody legally growing pot in their garden would trouble anyone."
Frankly, I have a difficult time seeing how somebody would only want to grow it. Wouldn't you grow it, harvest it, and consume it? Sell it/give it/share it with friends? Maybe take some with you when you travel?
Or am I assuming too much? Are you asking just about growing?
I buy weed on a regular basis. The only way I’m supporting terrorism is if I fill up the car first.
So I guess Al Gore’s son is helping the terrorist since he was just arrested with a small amount of pot.
Good point dude ...
What a great thread!
It’s wonderful to see our Dear Czar John Walters so clearly explain to the masses why they need the Government to tell them how to live.
Long live John Walters!
Long live Steady government work!
Long live Socialism!
All you poor dumb b*stards who think that the government is doing God’s work deserve a chunk of firewood upside your head.
More than once.
Monster
Words and music by John Kay
Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope
Like good Christians, some would burn the witches
Later some got slaves to gather riches
But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light
And once the ties with the crown had been broken
Westward in saddle and wagon it went
And ‘til the railroad linked ocean to ocean
Many the lives which had come to an end
While we bullied, stole and bought our a homeland
We began the slaughter of the red man
But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light
The blue and grey they stomped it
They kicked it just like a dog
And when the war over
They stuffed it just like a hog
And though the past has it’s share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But it’s protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it’s a monster and will not obey
(Suicide)
The spirit was freedom and justice
And it’s keepers seem generous and kind
It’s leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they won’t pay it no mind
‘Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
And now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it’s all just an echo of what they’ve been told
Yeah, there’s a monster on the loose
It’s got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin’
Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin’ the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can’t understand
We don’t know how to mind our own business
‘Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who’s the winner
We can’t pay the cost
‘Cause there’s a monster on the loose
It’s got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching
(America)
America where are you now?
Don’t you care about your sons and daughters?
Don’t you know we need you now
We can’t fight alone against the monster
You say it is your guess that there was a survey, then you assume it as fact in your question. The point is, the USDOJ and the people running the Drug War are using the 0.5% addiction rate to cocaine or opiates as their figure for 1900.
Surveys may be inaccurate. But they are good at showing trends, since the inaccuracies "wash out" are then irrelevant. Meaning my numbers are better when comparing a 1900's survey to today's survey.
1. Once again, you are taking your "guess" and assuming it as fact in your question. You can't do that.
2. Let's just say your guess is right and there was a survey. An addict who answered a survey question truthfully in 1900 was not admitting to a crime. Such is not the case with the NSDUH surveys. That right there would make the two surveys apples-to-oranges.
Now, if you wish to go back to some data from the 1900's that uses arrestee interviews and then apply your same formula with the same "truthfulness" factors -- then you have a valid argument. Right now you got nuthin'.
I have the most authoritative figures available, and the ones used by the USDOJ and the ONDCP. Your figures are labeled as invalid by the same outfits.
I think it's a good assumption that it was a survey. As to my question, I assume nothing as fact. It's just a question.
"The point is, the USDOJ and the people running the Drug War are using the 0.5% addiction rate to cocaine or opiates as their figure for 1900."
Yes. But YOU'RE the one comparing that number to a modern-day, mathematically generated number. I'm saying that's a no-no.
"Once again, you are taking your "guess"
It's a good assumption.
"An addict who answered a survey question truthfully in 1900 was not admitting to a crime."
No, but I doubt he was proud of it. Do adulterers answer questions about their faithfulness truthfully?
"I have the most authoritative figures available, and the ones used by the USDOJ and the ONDCP."
Hey, they may be. I don't know.
What I do know is that you can't compare those mathematically generated numbers to a 100-year-old survey.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.