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House Judiciary Committee Member Grills DEA for Hindering Medical Marijuana Research
07-13-07|BBSNews|Micheal Hess

WASHINGTON, D.C. (MPP) - House Judiciary Committee members grilled a Drug Enforcement Administration official today in the new Congress's first oversight hearing on federal law enforcement's role regarding medical marijuana.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) questioned DEA's Joseph Rannazzisi over the administration's suppression of a University of Massachusetts botanist's application to grow marijuana for research. After years of stonewalling, the DEA's own administrative law judge issued a nonbinding decision earlier this year that the application should be approved. Despite Rep. Nadler's request that the DEA commit to ruling on the application by the end of the Bush administration, Rannazzisi declined to state any specific timeline for the determination.

The committee also heard testimony from Valerie Corral, a Santa Cruz, Calif., medical marijuana patient and co-founder of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, a cooperative that provides medicine to authorized patients. Despite the co-op's legality under state law and the support of the county government, the DEA raided her home in 2002, confiscating WAMM's supply of medical marijuana and other personal property.

"It is unconscionable for federal agencies to continue to put politically expedient promotion of reefer madness before irrefutable medical science and the will and best interest of the American people," she submitted to the committee. "The well-being of thousands of seriously ill Americans backed by the opinion of the vast majority of their countrymen demands that medical marijuana be freed from federal interference."

The hearing marked an important turning point for advocates pressing the federal government to protect patients who use medical marijuana with their doctors' recommendation from arrest, said Aaron Houston, MPP's director of federal policy and the nation's only full-time federal lobbyist for marijuana policy.

"For too long, federal law enforcement has been allowed to run wild in its persecution of medical marijuana patients, ignoring both medical science and the will of voters," he said. "Today, the House Judiciary Committee sent a message that these agencies do not operate without oversight."

 

sterbo

As I'm so fond of saying - 'One step at a time: before you know it you're at the finish line'...
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Buzzby

I must admit that I have no idea how Congressional oversight is supposed to work. Is it like with the DEA's administrative judges? They can rule in favor of medical marijuana and the DEA is free to ignore them. Can't Congress simply tell the DEA what to do?

I'd like it to be a turning point, but it looks like Congress can "request" whatever they want and the DEA doesn't have to listen. Who has the power to require the DEA to do something?

Notice that the legalization movement has only one full-time lobbyist in Washington? That because all of you lazy potheads won't join up and contribute a few bucks so that we can get out from under prohibition.

National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML)

Marijuana Policy Project (MPP)

Drug Policy Alliance (DPA)

Sending a message is all well and good, but when is someone with the teeth to get them to quit fucking with medical marijuana going to act?

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dedbr

Does this mean that the DEA is going to let the people out who they've busted in the last twelve year's for medical marijuana? Fuck no. Everybody know's the answer to that one, huh? And how much does that word oversight mean? Does that mean that they go to the DEA and ask them what's going on, then go by what those fucker's say?

This is good, but I want to see how well the dog works before I'll say he's any good.......It's going to take a killer to drag this agency down........


Some Where In Ded Land.............We is winning ?.......

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"Don't talk to me of pacts. There are no pacts between lions and men. Wolves and lambs can enjoy no meeting of the minds, they are all bent on hating each other to the death."

Homer

Posting Guidelines!

sterbo

All good questions.

Like Buzzby says - it's the feet of the many that trump the one.Yes we is...
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Noeone

Having read the entire transcript on my way to NC to see family (takes about a day to get through it but I'd recommend reading it) I can say this is a real step in the right direction. It was about the WAMM raids, the ephedrine busts, and arresting doctors for prescribing Oxycontin to patents.

The whole thing shows that people are starting to take notice of the bullshit the DEA keeps doing. It's not going to change anything directly but at least it's a changing attitude.

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In any case civilization has made mankind if not more bloodthirsty, at least more vilely, more loathsomely bloodthirsty. In old days he saw justice in bloodshed and with his conscience at peace exterminated those he thought proper. Now we do think bloodshed abominable and yet we engage in this abomination, and with more energy than ever. Which is worse? -Fyodor Dostoevsky

Old Stoner

Welp, NORML is getting a donation from me tomorrow. Enough of this bullshit. Cannabis should be legal, PERIOD. For medicinal AND recreational purposes.

My dear best friends wife has Andylosing Sondilytis (sp?) ( a debilitating, no cure, back disorder) and medicinal pot would definitely help her with the excruciating pain this woman has to deal with daily, but our government, not to mention her doctors, would rather fill her up with less than effective pills with all kinds of side effects (she's already had kidney problems from the pills they've given her), than give the poor woman some smoke tom ease her pain. I forgot to add, she was taking chemo at one time, as well.

It is just crap that the people who run this country can't see that marijuana is basically a harmless weed, which has the distinct advantage of helping easing hurting peoples' pain.

Let's hope the old f'ers in Congress will die out, or get voted out, and someone with more liberal views on Cannabis use will get in Washington.

I KNOW the DEA and local law enforcement, not to mention the FBI, the CIA, and all the other goofy fools who dislike the herb are probably monitoring boards of this nature, so I say to them - GO OUT AND FIND THESE MURDERERS, RAPISTS, KIDNAPPERS, CHILD MOLESTORS, AND ILLEGAL ALIENS, and STOP harassing people who literally and figureatively bother NO ONE!

Sign me up, NORML....

And sign me, HAD ENOUGH,

Old Stoner

Old Stoner

Dedbr, I forgot to ask, you mention ded land, but being out of the loop for 25 years, I kinda don't know the lingo anymore, ya know, LOL? What the heck is ded land?

Ok, just call me stupid, he, he...

Peace,

Old Stoner