One of the tried and true methods of reasserting authoritarian power is to respond to challenges to that power with excessive force as a reminder of who is boss. This was started in New York by Tony Baloney and friends who did their damnedest to provoke a riot, while abusing young women and people with professional cameras in the process. It continued with the early ridicule in the press about the dirty hippies who didn't have a clue WTF they wanted aside from dancing half naked and partying in the park and banging their fucking hippie drums. Other cities have joined in the official overreaction game as well. Unfortunately for them, too many are sympathetic to the movement and their police brutality against the protesters has only strengthened the cause.
So now the big dogs are starting to leave the porch to join the fight. Bank of America announces their new debit card fee to fuck us even further, Congress refuses to act on jobs while passing three new free trade deals to fuck us even further, Senate Republicans release THEIR "jobs plan" designed to fuck us even further, and now they're cracking down on medicinal marijuana in California, say it after me, "to fuck us even further":
Obama DOJ Ratchets Up War Against Medical Marijuana
More below the double reclining treble clef ...
Signaling an intensification of federal government targeting of medical marijuana providers, the four US Attorneys in California last Friday announced a campaign of "coordinated enforcement actions targeting the illegal operations of the commercial marijuana industry in California." The announcement came at a Sacramento news conference.
The federal prosecutors said their enforcement actions would rely on pursuing civil forfeiture lawsuits against properties where dispensaries are located, sending threatening letters to dispensary landlords, and criminal prosecutions. The prosecutors said recent dispensary busts in Fresno, Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Diego were part of the enforcement campaign.
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One letter targeted the landlord for the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana (MAMM) in Fairfax, which has been operating with the support of the city and without complaint since 1996. In a letter to MAMM's landlord, the US Attorney for Northern California warned that the dispensary was operating within a "prohibited distance of a park." The letter threatened MAMM's landlord with up to 40 years in federal prison, seizure of his property, and forfeiture of all rental proceeds for the last 15 years if he doesn't evict MAMM.
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"This is nuts," said Greg Anton, attorney for the Marin Alliance and its director, Lynnette Shaw. "There's a dispensary near where I live that sells guns, narcotics, alcohol and tobacco and it's full of children. It's called Walmart, and it's safe. So is Lynnette's place. She's proven that over 15 years."
The people occupying a variety of cities are trying to send a message to the powers that be. Apparently they're still not listening. This is the same kind of thing that King George III tried in the 1770's, cracking down on enforcement of laws which had been allowed to be ignored by many people for years as a show of force. That worked out well for him didn't it? Make no mistake, the legal status of marijuana is one of the cornerstones of their power. You don't arrest nearly a million people a year without it being a major money center for a lot of people, private prisons, prison guards, drug counselers, defense attorneys, plus the interests of the legal drug manufacturers who want to monopolize people's ability to chemically alter their state of mind.
Furthermore, their ability to perpetuate these laws in the face of all of the evidence that marijuana is far less a danger to society than alcohol or tobacco is another symbol of their power to dictate "reality" to the rest of us. Marijuana has a great risk of physical addiction and has no medicinal value whatsoever - that is the official US government position. It is also a view that is forced on other countries as a condition of doing business with the US. It is an enormous lie, the destruction of which would be exceptionally beneficial to the people not only of this country, but of the entire planet.
Every time the Obama administration asked Americans for our top concerns, the top hundreds of questions were virtually ALL about the legal status of marijuana. Every fucking time. When will Washington wake the fuck up?