The DEA has failed to eradicate marijuana. Now Congress wants it to stop trying.

Washington Post ^ | November 27, 2015 | Christopher Ingraham

[ConservingFreedom]

[...] Last week a group of 12 House members led by Ted Lieu of California wrote to House leadership to push for a provision in the upcoming spending bill that would strip half of the funds away from the DEA's Cannabis Eradication Program, and put that money toward programs that "play a far more useful role in promoting the safety and economic prosperity of the American people:" domestic violence prevention and overall spending reduction efforts.

Each year the DEA spends about $18 million in efforts with state and local authorities to pull up marijuana plants being grown indoors and outdoors. The program has been plagued by scandal and controversy in recent years. In the mid-2000s it became clear that the overwhelming majority of "marijuana" plants netted by the program were actually "ditchweed," or the wild, non-cultivated, non-psychoactive cousin of the marijuana that people smoke.

More recently, overzealous marijuana eradicators have launched heavily-armed raids on okra plants, and warned the Utah legislature of the threat posed by rabbits who had "cultivated a taste for the marijuana." Last year the DEA spent an average of roughly $4.20 (yes, really) for each marijuana plant it successfully uprooted. In some states, the cost to taxpayers approached $60 per uprooted plant.

The program has also proven to be ineffective. The idea behind pulling up pot plants is to reduce the supply of marijuana, thereby reducing its use. In 1977, two years before the program's introduction, less than a quarter of Americans said they'd ever tried pot, according to Gallup. By 2015, after 36 years of federal marijuana eradication efforts, the share of Americans ever trying pot nearly doubled, to 44 percent. [...]

[ConservingFreedom]

Cannabis tincture was part of western pharmacology when the first federal regulation was enacted during FDRs administration.

Which is one reason they banned it under its Mexican name of "marihuana".

[tacticalogic]

Which is one reason they banned it under its Mexican name of "marihuana".

There was no small amount of linguistic legerdemain involved in banning hemp by "taxing marijuana".

[theBuckwheat]

“I think smoking pot is foolish. It is simply that I also think that cops enforcing laws against it are more of a threat to my welfare and civil liberties than potheads are.”

Yes, exactly my reasons as well. Never smoked it either. Don’t have any intentions to smoke it. But I am not willing to shoot someone in the head if they refuse to comply with my demand for them to not have a single leaf of the plant, let alone smoke it.

I am in favor of government requiring people who operate vehicles on public roads to be sober, that is to not be impaired by drugs or booze. That is, were the consumption of any substance could directly endanger the lives of others.

I really don’t want the government to have the power to arrest my money when I exercise my unalienable right of travel.

[Little Ray]

My personal opinion is that the cops should not be able to put up checkpoints for alcohol (or drugs) but should test for it when there are accidents or when drivers are stopped for reckless driving - and if they are present, there should be a major escalation of the charges.