DEA Backing Off?

[Tony Aroma]

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle_blog/2010/feb/16/dea_backs_down_after_threatening

Posted in Chronicle Blog by Scott Morgan on Tue, 02/16/2010 - 9:53pm

Jeffrey Sweetin of the DEA's Denver office on Saturday:

"Technically, every dispensary in the state is in blatant violation of federal law," he said. "The time is coming when we go into a dispensary, we find out what their profit is, we seize the building and we arrest everybody. They're violating federal law; they're at risk of arrest and imprisonment." [Denver Post]

Jeff Sweetin today:

"We are not declaring war on dispensaries," he says -- though he adds with a laugh, "If we were declaring war on dispensaries, they would not be hard to find. You can't swing a dead cat around here without hitting thirty of them."

Sweetin makes note of the fact that the DEA hasn't ever shut down a Colorado dispensary, and the agency doesn't plan on doing so unless there are aggravating factors involved -- like violence, ties to drug cartels or distribution to children. [Westword]

It sounds an awful lot like Sweetin's comments over the weekend may have resulted in somebody important telling him to calm the hell down. What goes on behind the scenes with this stuff is a mystery to me, but I doubt Sweetin figured out on his own that those nasty comments about raiding dispensaries weren't playing well in the press. I'd prefer to think maybe he got a quick phone call from Washington.

The DOJ's "official" policy of respecting state medical marijuana laws is hardly written in stone, leaving more than enough room for a nut like Sweetin to make a big mess provided that nobody yanks his leash. But if one thing is clear about medical marijuana policy under Obama, it's that they have no interest in doing battle with the 80% of Americans who support it. This latest episode isn't the first time one of the President's drug warriors has back-pedaled after making a stupid public comment about medical marijuana. There are new rules in place, and while they still leave much to be desired, it's important to appreciate the extent to which the old smash and grab medical marijuana policy has been put in check.

The point here isn’t that Obama loves medical marijuana, or that the DEA can now be counted on to behave itself. Politicians and drug war soldiers don't change overnight, but the mere expectation that the raids have ended can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy when the media and the public generally believe such activity is now illegal in addition to being unpopular. Imagine trying to convict a medical marijuana defendant in federal court in the current political climate. If you lose, the Dept. of Justice will look impotent during a period of surging marijuana entrepreneurship, and if you win, Obama will get skewered in the press.

So if rogue DEA officials still feel compelled to go around making angry threats in the newspaper, I say bring it on. The war on medical marijuana gets less popular every time they open their mouths.

 

[Space Toker]

thanks! excellent!

 

[Bulldog11]

lol, sounds like some agent with his undies too tight

 

[rambone]

If everybody was always stoned crimes would only be planned and never executed.

 

[Dnutz]

This is just another DEA prick trying to prove he has brass balls... Cali has weathered the storm with the DEA, so all we can do here in CO is do the same! Its people like him that are hindering everything with his big brother campaign... pathetic!

 

[slappyjack]

The problem I have with Sweetin is that his game is all based on FUD (Fear, uncertainty, doubt) and it is working.

How do I know it's working? Because I'm fearful (of jail), uncertain (that I can be sure I'm legal no matter how hard I try) and now doubtful that I'll ever get my legal dream business off the ground.

If I have 3 plants in flower, 3 moms and a half dozen clones slowly vegging, am I legal? Who knows? Who can I ask? What if I want to keep 50 mothers of different strains? What if I want to manufacture clones? Am I limited to 6?

I guess what I'm saying is that the 6 plant limit is impossible in a perpetual, legal garden. 10 plants is the minimum - 3 flower, 3 veg, 3 clones and 1 mother.

Is that plant count worthy of an arrest? Probably not, but it doesn't matter. If they want to arrest me, they will. The DEA still has all the power even though growing our medicine is a constitutional right. That is wrong.

 

[rootfingers]

DEA is mentally sick. What kind of prick goes swinging dead cats around anyway?

 

[Sam the Caveman]

This is all good now, but what happens when the crowd changes in washington?

There needs to be a law in place on a federal level that protects medicinal cannabis users, dispensaries and growers. That's the only way these policies will stick, otherwise its back to the bush years when obama is gone.

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

This is just another DEA prick trying to prove he has brass balls... Cali has weathered the storm with the DEA, so all we can do here in CO is do the same! Its people like him that are hindering everything with his big brother campaign... pathetic!

thats it! all they are gonna do is put a watch dog in every town/state where the cannabis laws are being implemented and where those select few are being respected BUT watched (lets not be fooled, americans are still americans)

and like someone else mentioned, what is being done in cali needs to be done the world over

lmao, its a shitty analogy but lets not e like teh democrats and fight the big fights and shy away from the smaller ones because we think they're not worth it. even if a dispensary is a run down shack in the middle of nowhere, medical marijuana users should be made full aware of its existence and it too should be fought for in the case that it ever does need to be!

 

[Hydro-Soil]

There needs to be a law in place on a federal level that protects medicinal cannabis users, dispensaries and growers. That's the only way these policies will stick, otherwise its back to the bush years when obama is gone.

Gee... before our socialist president FDR took office... congress didn't have the power to CREATE the damn DEA.... Along with tons of other crap that's killing our country.

They don't teach this stuff in school though.... so I don't hold it against anyone.


Educate Yourself though... and then educate your neighbor.

Stay Safe!

 

[Rednick]

"If everybody was always stoned crimes would only be planned and never executed." Rambone

Or the only crimes would be munchie related. "Yo, I'm hungry let's go rob the hot dog cart"..."No need man, I have some money, let's buy the hot dog"..."Good idea. But can I still wear my ski mask?"

And to all the Socialists. Time will tell if you Messiah is going to save you. Givin what he has done in the first year, I would say "hold your breath", so my vote counts all that much more next time.
Most of you seem to think Obama did something, but really it is the absence of him doing something that has so far allowed this current climate.

 

[Dnutz]

"If everybody was always stoned crimes would only be planned and never executed." Rambone

Or the only crimes would be munchie related. "Yo, I'm hungry let's go rob the hot dog cart"..."No need man, I have some money, let's buy the hot dog"..."Good idea. But can I still wear my ski mask?"

And to all the Socialists. Time will tell if you Messiah is going to save you. Givin what he has done in the first year, I would say "hold your breath", so my vote counts all that much more next time.
Most of you seem to think Obama did something, but really it is the absence of him doing something that has so far allowed this current climate.

Couldnt have said it better myself! We wanted change... o wait... what is change again? I really wonder if Obama asks himself that every morning when he gets out of bed!? All the change I have personally seen is stupid nonsense road changes... putting america back to work is great and all, but all it is doing is helping people that already have jobs... Im not hating on them at all, but I am going on 7 months of unemployment and no jobs in my field are breaking... and whats ironic about it, is I work in construction...

I guess all I can do is sit here and...

 

[stihgnobevoli]

why is everyone always ranting against socialism? do you even know what it means?

ever heard the phrase for the people by the people? thats socialism, how is that bad?

better than the current for the corporations by the people.

 

[Bazarocka]

so·cial·ism
   /ˈsoʊʃəˌlɪzəm/ Show Spelled[soh-shuh-liz-uhm] Show IPA
–noun
1. A theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2.
procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3.
(in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.

 

[bergerbuddy]

Some intersting points to ponder... made by the DEA itself..


Medical marijuana raid fallout: "We are not declaring war on dispensaries," says DEA head Jeff SweetinBy Joel Warner, Tuesday, Feb. 16 2010 @ 6:44AMComments (32) Categories: Marijuana

​Lately, dispensary owners and marijuana growers have been watching their back.

Over the past few weeks, Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided two marijuana testing facilities, one in Denver and one in Colorado Springs, as well busting a Highland Ranch marijuana grow on Friday that its owner had bragged about on 9News. Yesterday marijuana mouthpiece Rob Corry declared that Colorado DEA has gone rogue from federal medical marijuana guidelines, while DEA spokesman Mike Turner confirmed that there have been a handful of other grow-facility raids along the Front Range over the past month or so.

So -- is the DEA on the medical-marijuana warpath?

To that question, Jeff Sweetin, the special agent in charge of DEA operations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Montana, keeps it plain and simple. "We are not declaring war on dispensaries," he says -- though he adds with a laugh, "If we were declaring war on dispensaries, they would not be hard to find. You can't swing a dead cat around here without hitting thirty of them."

As for people like Corry who are accusing his agency of launching a marijuana crusade, Sweetin says, "I think the people who claim to represent marijuana growers in this state are trying to create this fear, and I think that's sad."

Sweetin makes note of the fact that the DEA hasn't ever shut down a Colorado dispensary, and the agency doesn't plan on doing so unless there are aggravating factors involved -- like violence, ties to drug cartels or distribution to children. Yes, the DEA has conducted raids on several grow facilities, but that's because Sweetin says they were so blatantly violating even state medical-marijuana laws they couldn't be ignored.

Take the Highland Ranch raid last Friday, says Sweetin: "When you turn on 9News, and you have a guy talking about how much pot he grows, how are you not going to go after that guy?" Not only was that residential grow operation just a few hundred feet from an elementary school, says Sweetin, but agents discovered that the owner, Chris Bartkowicz, didn't have nearly enough medical marijuana patients under his care to justify the 150 pot plants they found in his basement.

As for the two marijuana testing labs DEA also raided? By applying for DEA licenses, both operations essentially compelled agents to come in and seize their weed.

"It used to be we paid people cash money for marijuana information," says Sweetin. "We don't have to anymore. We just have to watch the news or go about our daily lives and we come across major grows." He says that since Friday's high-profile raid, concerned citizens have been sending the DEA information about other potential residential marijuana grows.

Sweetin's stance seems to have softened some since he was quoted in the Denver Post last Friday as saying, "The time is coming when we go into a dispensary, we find out what their profit is, we seize the building and we arrest everybody. They're violating federal law."

The DEA head notes that quote was taken somewhat out of context, but stands by the concept that medical marijuana businesses are still violating federal law. Sweetin is also careful to note that while, in October, the Department of Justice told federal prosecutors to defer to state medical marijuana laws, the memo establishing this approach also noted that dispensaries and associated businesses would still be prosecuted if there were other factors involved, such as activities or marijuana amounts clearly in violation of state marijuana laws.

So how can a well-meaning dispensary owner or commercial pot grower stay on the DEA's good side? For one thing, Sweetin says, they should make sure they are in complete compliance with state law ("I wish them well with that," says Sweetin, since he thinks the state's medical-pot amendment has created huge confusion). Then, he says, "They should know exactly who they are giving marijuana to."

Finally, here's another suggestion: Don't boast about your operation on the nightly news.

 

[Balazar]

I wouldn't be surprised if the DEA fucked with a grower that had a terminal illness and that grower then decided to burn his house down and fly an airplane into their headquarters. The guy that did it to the IRS is being hailed as a hero! Once you destroy a persons life beyond repair there is no greater achievement left in life than to be a martyr. One of these days they will raid the wrong house and we will have WACO all over again because some snot nosed little punk like Sweetin wants to go on a power trip and fucks with the wrong people.

 

[treewizard]

Calling Obama a socialist is like calling Stalin a true Marxist, or Jim Jones a religious figure for that matter. Obama, just like every other politician I have seen in my lifetime, is nothing more than a bitch boy for corporate America. The forces that are destroying America are the ones that allow it to be run by buisness interests rather than the people who supposedly elected these officials. The US looks more like Mussolini's Italy than anything that the founding fathers invisioned. I think that we need to build a guillotine in Washington. At any rate if Obama were indeed a real socialist than I doubt we would still be debating healthcare and my girlfriend wouldn't have to worry about where the money for her next liquid iron suppliment was coming from. Not to mention we would be dealing with far less of a homeless population. My friend who just applied for one of those Obama buisness loans wouldn't have gotten rejected on the grounds of not being quite big enough and not having enough taxable inventory. I also doubt that I would be doing day labor with out of work highschool math teachers.

Anyways I worry about a change of the guard and what that might bring. Honestly though how long can they keep this up? Does anyone else notice that our country is going broke? How many 7-10 figure sums do you have to throw at something before you give up? In Washington state alone in cost something like 10 million last year alone to keep pot "off the streets". Something tells me that those kids at UW who got their financial aid cut might like some of that. So how far is the opposition willing to take this? How many social, education, and helthcare oriented programs are they willing to shut down or cut to keep their beloved war on drugs limping along?

 

[Rednick]

Poke the bear and get furry butt rape in the woods.
That is all I gotta say.

And if you really want to get political, I stand with bergerbuddy on this.
Learn about the Libertarian party. Many ones (uh, hmm Boulder LP), seem more socialist than libertarian. But the concept remains the same.

Less government, more sense.

As in, don't fioning wait for the government to fix your life, let the government be an entity that is only there to assist you in better you own life (and those around you, symbiosis), on your own.

 

[Tony Aroma]

This is all good now, but what happens when the crowd changes in washington?

There needs to be a law in place on a federal level that protects medicinal cannabis users, dispensaries and growers. That's the only way these policies will stick, otherwise its back to the bush years when obama is gone.

Even legislation can change on the whim of the current administration. What we need is a Constitutional amendment. At least those are more permanent, relatively speaking, and reflect the will of the people as opposed to the will of politicians.

I'm not talking about an amendment to legalize mj. Nope, that would never fly. I'm talking about an amendment to fill in the missing right in our Bill of Rights: the right to privacy. With such an amendment, the government would no longer have any power to tell consenting adults what they can and cannot do in the privacy of their homes. So how do you get the Constitutional amendment ball rolling?

 

[Neo 420]

I see people wanna cry (Boo Hoo) over Obama being a socialist but where was that crying when we had a dictator running shop (Bush). The MJ movement is at its best place EVER in history and some guys here wanna bash the POTUS over it. You may not like his views on healthcare or economy items but when it comes to pot Obama is the man.