Hempy McNoodle
Well-known member
No. That's my point. Obama's policy. Either Biden did not try back then to sway Obama (my belief). Or, he did try as hard as he could but Obama said, "FUCK NO, JOE! I WANT THEM IN PRISON!"
Criminal indictments coming for Trump.
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moose eater
Well-known member
Hempy, BOTH PARTIES tend to assess risks and benefits for ANY changes in major policies before they leap. Formal representation has never set the trend for such changes; the People have.
Partisans and parties dance to polls. (Edit: Including tRump's Administration... hence his comment on the train in Fla in 2016, when he told the R-Party handlers who were unhinged about what tRump had said, that he "...was simply telling the crowd what they wanted to hear.")
I dance to rock-n-roll.
History would tell you that change has rarely been a top-down phenomenon. Really nearly never.
You're essentially criticizing them for being what they are; politicians.
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Hempy McNoodle
Well-known member
"Change we can believe in"
moose eater
Well-known member
Is your repetitious quote to insinuate that I or others voted for Obama, or that I or others are Democrats?
Hempy McNoodle
Well-known member
Just saying that Obama and Biden are huge grifters.
And then there's Trump.
Yeah I remember hearing about those letters too but as I recall the story those letters were sent by Republican state attorneys not willing to go along with the guidance the Obama administration suggested. Which that was likely part of the problem that they were only suggestions that others could choose to follow or ignore. I also remember them being discussed heavily here and for the vast majority nothing ever came of them at least during the Obama administration. Now keep in mind, my comments were only with regards to what happened during the Obama administration and mainly as it applied to Recreational Marijuana. So obviously that has nothing to do with what went on in the 70's and 80's. After you brought it up though I do recall something predating the Obama administration that had to do with Alaska but as I recall it wasn't recreational as we think of it today but something that allowed people to have up to I want to say 4 ounces without it being considered a crime. It was really just regarding possession though not selling or growing. I also remember there being wildly different views on what was and wasn't legal during those days which was likely reflective of the confusion about the constitutional rights vs the unconstitutional recriminalization as you put it?
It didn't kill all and at the time there were no other options especially for people like my wife whose breathing were severely compromised. Before Covid was ever a thing there were 2 other times my wife had to be put on a ventilator to get her past whatever health crisis it was she had at the time. In both those cases she was able to come off the ventilator just fine. I'm no doctor or medical scientist so I can't say with anymore certainty then you what were responsible for those who died after being on a ventilator and those that didn't. What I can speak to though is my wife's experience with them and what the doctors told me about using ventilators during those times she was able to come off them and recover. In those case what the doctors told me was that ventilators are not meant to be used as a long term solution but rather a temporary stop gap to allow the patient to remain unconscious while healing in other parts of the body took place. Each time when they took her off I was told they had to because if they kept her on any longer her body might essential forget how to breath on it's own. In all the cases my wife was on a ventilator she was only on for a few days (less then a week) and each time the doctors felt it was a greater risk to leave her on then to take her off. I remember hearing stories of covid patients being on ventilators for a month or more. So I can't help but wonder if it was the ventilator that killed people or being left on them too long.
That all is still irrelevant to how my wife caught the illness and the role Trump's lack of leadership and unified messaging played into it. Had he not been actively criticizing the guidelines of the CDC and his own Covid Response Task Force, had there been firmer rules in place preventing people who were sick from coming to work and had there been more testing at least among emergency workers, maybe that Dialysis Technician might have stayed home that day, maybe they would have found sooner that she was infect infected and carrying the virus and kept her at home until the virus was gone and maybe my wife would still be alive today and still have a shot of getting the transplants she was on the list for. Unfortunately we'll never know because none of those things happened. Like it or not due to his failures in leadership during that time 100,000's died that didn't need to and he has their deaths on his hands whether he and people like you will ever admit it and that's why more then anything else he lost in 2020 by nearly 8,000,000 votes
No because I never said that it never happened as a blanket statement. I said it never happened to those who followed state rules which was the only condition the Obama administration said they wouldn't go after people.
Or maybe Biden did talk to Obama about it and maybe that's what influenced Obama to allow the states to run the experiments they were trying to run.
moose eater
Well-known member
I was fairly certain the letters I read about were DoJ/DEA generated. They were directed at clinics/dispensaries at a time that only Cali had in-your-face dispensaries in the US.
Perhaps the Orange County R's were twitterpated and requested Fed intervention, but the warning shots across the proverbial bows were federal, and during Obama's tenure. I can clearly recall the dual-directionality of Obama's words, versus the DEA/DoJ's threats. There were inner battles in DC over this at that time, and it was pretty clear.
The 4-oz.-limit in Alaska was a result of a legislative compromise that took effect March 1983, after very little restrictive definition in the original 1975 Ravin v. State decision.
That same month the State Supreme Court (then-Chief Justice Rabinowitz) ruled that cannabis and the science behind it, failed to show it to be a matter of 'compelling interest' for the State, thus it fell under the protections of Article 1, Section 22 in Alaska ("The right of the People to privacy shall not be infringed"), the legislature decriminalized up to one ounce possession in public.. Ravin dealt with the issue of privacy in the home as it related to cannabis, and the legislature took it a step further, decrimming 1-oz. in public, not to be publicly used or displayed (which we often violated as flamboyantly ignorant youngsters).
And Rabinowitz's ruling simply stated that possession of "small amounts for personal use in the homes of adults" was protected. There was no specific aggregate weight limit in a private residence from May, 1975, until March, 1983, though we could certainly see the rednecks and religious zealots weren't going to let it lay, and we had done our best to shoot ourselves in the ass by flaunting our proclivities.
There were cases during that poorly-defined 8-year period where tens of pounds were ordered returned to the owner after a bust was dismissed in court, citing the weed as 'for personal use'... with many winks and nods. The Potters Flats bust in Fall of 1978 had the judge order the return of 23-lbs. though the owner never got to receive it. The pigs often subverted those court orders in numerous ways, and SHOULD have been popped for contempt.
The unconstitutional recrim vote here in 1990, was put on via an illegally 'formed' group (Alaskans for Drug-Free Youth) that illegitimately accepted $250,000 in a grant from Nancy Reagan and others (They had no proper legal formation as a 501(c) 3 or (c) 4 to accept that money; they were effectively a non-entity by law), and that clusterfuck of illegally passed and implemented law was shot down by attorney William Satterberg of Fairbanks, representing David Noy (that story would require another encyclopedic size write-up.
Note that cannabis was already illegal for those under age 19 (then the age of majority in Alaska, though now it's age 21).
Bill Satterberg, a republican, ended up on the cover of High Times, after ressurrecting Ravin in about 2001 via the David Noy case and a questionable ruling by State Superior Court Judge Jane Kauvar, that finally paved the way for the case to be heard in State Appellate Court; something the State had craftily avoided for years, as once the situation went to a State Court that could set it straight, they new their rouse was done..
DEA and US Marshalls were quite active in Alaska, especially during the later 1980's and early 1990's; I know a number of people whose lives were destroyed by that era's cannabis policies, and those destructive raids occurred here under both Republican and Democrat tenure in D.C., to include the Obama Administration.
Edits: There was no restriction re. cultivation under Ravin, though some of the prohibitionists claimed Ravin only addressed possession; it included all aspects but for sale, and therefore weed couldn't be assigned a cash value. Under the 1983 legislative compromise we were limited to 24 plants. There was no specific plant-count restriction from May '75 to March 1983.
Under Loren Leman's 1999 Medical substitute bill, as well as under the legalization initiative's restrictions, an adult can have up to 6 plants, of which no more than 3 are supposed to be in flower stage, with no more than 12 plants to a household with multiple adult residents, even if there's more than 2 adults living there.
HOWEVER, the legalization initiative included language stating that it would not be construed as displacing or nullifying anything afforded by the Ravin Decision. So if the powers that be here ever get enough free time to not be constantly battling more serious issues, and they choose to start popping folks for having too many plants, that might be when the overdue argument is addressed, re. whether or not the 1983 compromise legislation that permitted up to 24 plants was actually the codification of Ravin? Though I'm certain I'll be in the ground by the day such discourse takes place..
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While others (namely you) fail to comprehend what you post as evidence. First and most importantly what that case represented was filed as a Federal civil forfeiture complaint which is very different from a criminal one. It clearly stated that it could have led to arrests and charges or it might not, saying it was purely arbitrary. Most importantly it pointed out that the US attorney responsible (Melinda Haag) was operating against Obama's and Holder's guidance. Perhaps most importantly it never stated if it even ever happened or was just merely threatened. So unless you can show evidence where arrests were made and charges placed against people not violating state rules, then no history was revised. Which you can't because...Some would like to 'edit' or 'revise' history...
Harborside Health Center Faces Raids, Epic Legal Battle | East Bay Express | Oakland, Berkeley & Alameda
Harborside Health Center’s 100,000 patients and their allies are bracing themselves for a possible federal raid on the popular Oakland medical cannabis dispensary, as well as a long, complex, and costly legal battle. A pre-dawn raid on Harborside to seize its marijuana, computers, and other...eastbayexpress.com
Feds drop bid to shut down Harborside in big win for pot industry
In a milestone victory for the cannabis industry, the federal government agreed to drop...
Funny how you left out that important detail.
I forgot... Who was President in 2012? Can someone please remind Hempy?
Feds drop bid to shut down Harborside in big win for pot industry
In a milestone victory for the cannabis industry, the federal government agreed to drop...
Funny how you left out that important detail
moose eater
Well-known member
I'm sorry for the loss of your wife, and also angered that there are still numskulls trying to politicize the suffering the pandemic brought with it.
Grief sucks, as does suffering in any other way, but for any elongated suffering, itches that can't be scratched, so to speak, there's little worse than grief that stays and makes its home, involving the final goodbyes of our dearest loved ones..
Take care.
Well clearly you know much more then I when it comes to marijuana laws in Alaska so I'll defer to you on that.
As for the last paragraph you talk about the 80's and 90's as the eras when the destructive raids occurred but then you go on to include the Obama Administration which didn't begin until the late 2000's. I'm not trying to split hairs here but the story Hempy posted about Harborside was a perfect example of what I was talking about where certain US Attorneys were going against what Obama and Holden stated as US policy but mostly as a scare tactic to get the landlords of the businesses they threatened to do the dirty work by pre-emptively getting them to evict the dispensaries. Now I will grant you that was dirty and underhanded and shouldn't have happened if they followed the President's lead but if you can't show me where Obama or Holder ordered it against someone in compliance with State laws and regulation then I think it's improper to bundle the Obama administration in there.
I'm not saying with 100% certainty it didn't happen, clearly I don't follow such news as closely as you do but I do know that during that period Colorado's recreational industry flourished and that is what lead to many states across the country to follow suit even as recently as 2021 (Virginia). I can't prove connective tissue between Obama's position and the legalizations that have incurred since but I have a difficult time believing any of it would have happened if the Feds enforced the laws against Cannabis from Obama's administration until now.
Thanks, I'm mostly over it and given the way things have gone with the world since both my wife and my Mother who passed a year before, I've come to accept they are in a better place and happy that they are not here to see how bad things have become in just the few years they've been gone. Especially my Mother, she made it thru the Depression, WWII, Korea and Vietnam and managed to succeed in a man's world despite things not really opening up for women until after she retired in the 80's. She would be horrified to she how far we've regressed and damaged so much of what her generation struggled for to give us.
Again you fail to consider all possibilities. You know good and well that if Obama the first Black President tried to legalize marijuana the republicans would have crucified him along racial stereotypical lines which is largely what made marijuana illegal in the first place. Given how Obama did what Republicans and MAGA republicans especially claim they want to do, leave up to states to decide one would think people like you would at least give Obama the lion share of the credit but you can't or won't and the only apparent reason is because he was a democrat.
moose eater
Well-known member
No, as I mentioned earlier, it was fairly clear back then that there was a power-play going on between the Oval Office, DEA, and DoJ, but my attitude back then (and somewhat still) was that these were Obama's federal cops/agencies, and while he was saying one thing, they were doing something altogether different.
But under federal law, the states' positions on the subject lacked any real significance.
I do recall Obama's very openly stated and strong criticisms of the drug war, and not just weed, during his time in the Senate. It was that very set of positive statements by him, assailing the war on drugs, that made it infuriating to read of the agencies' antics back then in Cali, under Obama's watch.
*Hempy heads toward dump with paper bag...
Might make your intellect bounce back LMAO.
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