Feds seek prison for rural Washington pot growers

Yahoo ^ | 5/10/14 | Johnson

[mgist]

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — The green-cross storefronts of medical marijuana dispensaries are common in much of Washington, and the state is plowing ahead with licensing people to grow and sell recreational pot to adults. But a federal trial scheduled to begin in the coming weeks for five people in Spokane suggests not all is OK with weed in the state. Larry Harvey, a 70-year-old medical marijuana patient with no criminal history, three of his relatives and a family friend each face mandatory minimum sentences of at least 10 years in prison after they were caught growing about 70 pot plants on their rural, mountainous property. The Harveys did have guns at their home, which is part of the reason for the lengthy possible prison time. They say the weapons were for hunting and protection, but prosecutors say two of the guns were loaded and in the same room as a blue plastic tub of pot. Medical marijuana advocates have cried foul, arguing the prosecution violates Department of Justice policies announced by Attorney General Eric Holder last year that nonviolent, small-time drug offenders shouldn't face lengthy prison sentences. "This case is another glaring example of what's wrong with the federal policy on cannabis," said Kari Boiter, Washington state coordinator for the medical marijuana group Americans for Safe Access. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Harrington, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Spokane, said he could not discuss the upcoming trial or the office's general approach to pot crimes. But the case illustrates discrepancies in how law enforcement officials are handling marijuana cases as Washington — with the Justice Department's blessing — moves ahead with its grand experiment in pot legalization. Medical marijuana gardens the size of the Harveys' rarely draw attention from authorities in the Seattle area.

[mgist]

Forward this to all your Libertarian friends who naively thought drug legalization was about personal liberties and not government corruption. The cartels wont tolerate competition.

The cartels wont tolerate competition. The cartels fillwall Street banks with cash, and political coffers are lined. Benghazi, Fast and Furious, Arab Spring, Afghanistans record opiate production protected by US troops, Egypt, Syria, the "drug legalization" hoax are all about the Federal Government supporting the $Multi BILLION drug cartels.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs

JP Morgan openly launders money in cities such as Caracas, Venezuela. Chavez turned that nation into one of the biggest drug distributors of the world. The people have no toilet paper, but they have plenty of cocaine.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/08/21/jp-morgans-venezuelan-cronyism-reaches-a-boiling-point/?onswipe_redirect=no

Maybe they should consider why the DEA has been caught laundering money as well, "Agency officials declined to publicly discuss details of their work, citing concerns about compromising their investigations." How convenient?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/world/americas/us-drug-agents-launder-profits-of-mexican-cartels.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&

Why is the entire US Justice Department is complicit with the cartels? One example reported here: CONFIRMED: The DEA Struck A Deal With Mexico's Most Notorious Drug Cartel MICHAEL KELLEY JAN. 13, 2014,

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-government-and-the-sinaloa-cartel-2014-1#ixzz30wXEcHSl

“The evidence seems to indicate that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons, but that tax payers’ dollars in the form of informant payments, may have financed those engaging in such activities,” the pleading added.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/fast-and-furious-linked-immunity-deal-between-us-and-sinaloa-cartel-trafficking

Sinaloa cartel is the same murderous drug cartel that Holder's ATF curiously gave an arsenal of weapons to in the Fast and Furious scandal.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/05/the_fast_and_furious_red_herring.html

[umgud]

If you like your pot farm, you can keep it.

[S.O.S121.500]

Jury Nullification ?

[Scrambler Bob]

Loaded in the same room as pot.

Got to keep that pot from getting out of the pot.

Or keep the guns high.

[leapfrog0202]

Kind of odd that everyone in that family has a medical marijuana use permit. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of a husband, wife, wife’s son & his wife all having permits. Strange.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Live by the Calvinball, die by the Calvinball.

[RIghtwardHo]

I know this site doesn’t really like cursing, so I won’t, but I’ll let you imagine what I want to tell ODimwit to do to himself.

THIS is corruption.

[RIghtwardHo]

I hope so. I’d sure as poop find em not guilty (said the former Prosecutor)

[HiTech RedNeck]

His promises have a shorter shelf life than preservative free bread.

[mgist]

http://www.myfoxal.com/story/25471046/dea-more-than-30m-in-spice-drug-money-sent-to-yemen

DEA: More than $30M in ‘spice’ drug money sent to Yemen

That’s just marijuana. Imagine the heroin $BILLIONS being made. They don’t pay taxes, and pay offs with protection included is cheaper. This was NEVER about patients supposed needs.

[dfwgator]

Government don’t like folks cutting in on their business.

[HiTech RedNeck]

that’s one speecy spicy meatball

[mgist]

Famed Author Seymour Hersch outlined how the Obama administration was using the US military to support the Muslim Brotherhood, which are essentially the heroin trafficicking murderers.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article183223.html

World markets are being flooded with heroin so pure it can be snorted, and in the US today the supply is so large that a baggy costs less than a pack of cigarettes. Meanwhile the peasants remain dangerously ignorant to what is going on. Our children need to be protected. The media silence is deafening and ominous. The control of the pychopathic cartels on societies is unprecedented and dangerous. May God help us all.

When you remember that the Muslim Brotherhood is really just a Drug Cartel in the multi $billion heroin trade, all the insanity that the media pretends is the “new normal” makes perfect sense. There are decades of research and documentation that proves the Taliban were basically organized for heroin trafficking purposes. “Seeds of Terror: How Heroin Is Bankrolling the Taliban and al Qaeda.” By Gretchen Peters

The cartels have been behind numerous government regimes. So have the banks who launder the cartel’s money. Bankers who laundered money for the cartels, have been pushing drug legalization, including heroin, since the 90’s. The effective campaign should be a case study in social engineering. Soros for example, a hedge fund manager with off shore accounts, was also one of Obama’s largest benefactors. Those seeking to profit from the misery of others have poured $BILLIONS into a drug legalization campaign that would make Goebbel’s proud. The article from 2004 is prophetic.

http://www.aim.org/special-report/the-hidden-soros-agenda-drugs-money-the-media-and-political-power/

[Sasparilla]

As usual, the White House is behaving in a Jekyll and Hyde manner on policy. The occupier can’t make up his mind.

[gunsequalfreedom]

Make it legal. Why in congress people so afraid to deal with issues.

[gunsequalfreedom]

Let’s call the prosecutor and tell him to drop it.

[alexander_busek]

Kind of odd that everyone in that family has a medical marijuana use permit. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of a husband, wife, wife’s son & his wife all having permits. Strange.

Yeah, Comrade, I, too, find that mighty strange!

Imagine: Four people who all have the same prescription! Like four people who all wear prescription glasses... Or a family of four who all suffer from the same illness (diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.).

That can't be right! We need Father State to step in and start asking questions. Preferably with a no-knock search. And don't forget to shoot the dog!

Regards,

[nathanbedford]

If you want to know why the war on drugs is lost start thinking about it the way Adam Smith and Warren Buffett would think about it.

Adam Smith would talk about the law of supply and demand and he tells us that when the demand goes up so does the price; when supply goes down, the price goes up. When the demand is inelastic, that is, when it is the product of an addiction, the price curve is even more radical in its upward thrust when supply is reduced. Therefore, the more the government succeeds in interdicting the supply of addictive drugs, the more it increases the price and thereby increases the incentive to increase supply. The more the government succeeds, the more it must fail.

That is why drug smugglers and dealers are so wonderfully inventive in evading the law and will ever continue to be so unless you want to live in North Korea.

Without putting words in Warren Buffett's mouth, his criteria for investing in an enterprise are well-known. He wants a company with a unique product and a huge market potential. What better than an addictive drug? He wants company with high barriers to entry against competition. What better barrier than the law and what better barriers than drug enforcement agencies raiding your competition? And if competition becomes too serious, this business model says you simply eliminate it by murdering them.

Buffett would be very intrigued by the idea that costs are extremely low, markup extremely high, and the price is ever supported by the government! By making drugs illegal, the government in effect has enacted price supports. By selling into an inelastic demand of addicts, the market as well as price are virtually guaranteed.

Because the price is high, addicts are incentivized to push the drugs onto others in order to addict them, to create a mini market which funds their own addiction. What a wonderful business model! On the macro level it is a multilevel marketing scheme on steroids, or should I say, powered by addiction, and supported by the government.

Meanwhile, this wonderful marketing scheme generates so much money that corruption is inevitable. Worse, our enemies in the Muslim world and elsewhere have exploited this market to our disadvantage and national security peril. Meanwhile, our only politically correct response is a full throated roar: "do more of the same."

All of this you lay at the feet of libertarians.

Hello?

[JmyBryan]

How do you stop people from doing drugs? Almost everyone I know uses legal or illegal drugs.

[nathanbedford]

How do you stop people from doing drugs?

By exhorting them to stop. By providing them a model of those who do not use. By preaching from the pulpit and opening church and temple doors to them. But the one thing we ought not to do is to enlist the government to prohibit them from doing drugs. We have learned that that simply does not work, obviously you must agree with that limited observation because your second sentence is,

Almost everyone I know uses legal or illegal drugs.

At this point, conservatives generally argue that society has a right to protect itself against the undeniable harm which comes from using drugs.

When we turn to government it should not be to enlist the physical force of government to prohibit drug use, it should only bring the criminal law to bear on crimes which occur as a result of using drugs, such as driving under the influence of drugs. For the most part we do not criminalize the consumption of alcohol but we do criminalize many acts which might be enabled by the use of alcohol and we should consider the same approach for drug use.

At this point the liberal might say, the use of drugs is medically contraindicated and causes the taxpayer huge amounts to treat people who are ill as a result of using drugs, as a civil and decent society society must do. When addicts swamp our emergency rooms, when they swamp our law courts, our divorce courts, our criminal law courts, society has a right to pass laws which address the cause rather than symptoms.

It is at this point of the libertarian says, merely because the left has forced the taxpayer to subsidize healthcare does not give that taxpayer the right to curtail liberty to reduce costs of healthcare. An American Indian thinks he has a First Amendment constitutional right to practice his religion and smoke peyote. Shall the government have the power to forbid and prosecute this practice merely because it might lead to heavier drug usage and social dislocation including increased health costs? Where will that end in a world in which the left has an infinite appetite do "good?"

We sacrifice so much liberty in a war on drugs that is doomed to make matters worse even as it fails.