Eric Holder backs down on cannabis prosecution

bulastoner

Well-Known Member
[h=1]Eric Holder Says DOJ Will Let Washington, Colorado Marijuana Laws Go Into Effect[/h]
WASHINGTON -- The United States government took a historic step back from its long-running drug war on Thursday, when Attorney General Eric Holder informed the governors of Washington and Colorado that the Department of Justice would allow the states to create a regime that would regulate and implement the ballot initiatives that legalized the use of marijuana for adults.
 

growone

Well-Known Member
this is the big one, DOJ has just caved
they don't have the cojones to go to court, likely they think they'll lose
this prohibition really is ending, though you can count on more victims
they'll bust the biggest operators, state legal or not, keep it under control - not
it's a doomed effort, more momentum builds every day
 

TreeOfLiberty

Well-Known Member
this is the big one, DOJ has just caved
they don't have the cojones to go to court, likely they think they'll lose
this prohibition really is ending, though you can count on more victims
they'll bust the biggest operators, state legal or not, keep it under control - not
it's a doomed effort, more momentum builds every day
You said it exactly. I think the DEA is planning a last ditch effort a few months after the New Year to hit both WA and CO recreational pot stores and claim interstate trafficking of marijuana across state lines. Notice this new promise says "if states regulate tightly" , that's not going to happen as black market growers and sellers are using WA and CO and other MMJ states to supply non-legal states. This new Fed promise is being pressured by Sen. Patrick Leahy that want's to know an answer on the Feds vs. the States marijuana laws. He's been pressing the AG real hard for an answer, so the Feds just gave a simple response like the one they gave in Oct. 2009 which they never honored.

I do think we are getting closer to the end of Federal harassment and prosecution over states with MMJ and recreational bills. When the Feds do break their promise and start the raids up again, especially in WA and CO with recreational marijuana, it's going to create a shit storm of opposition. If we have not seen any raids in WA or CO by early summer of 2014, you can then start to believe that the Feds are telling the truth this time, but I won't believe it until that time gets here and we haven't seen any raids by that time. I still think they are going to concentrate most of their manpower in WA and CO early next year shutting down recreational pot stores. They lie like hell all the time. A leopard doesn't change it's spots.
 

growone

Well-Known Member
^^^ well said sir, very plausible scenario
over the 4 years since i got on to the grow sites, the progress forward has been incredible
and DEA/DOJ has fought it every step of the way, lot of good it's doing them
but tell you the truth, it could be made federally legal and these fucks would still be trying to bust people
it's now a part of fedral law enforcement culture, weed is the root of all evil, always will be in their screwed up point of view
 

FranJan

Well-Known Member
Uhmmm, do you guys actually believe anything that lying two-faced asshole Holder or that administration says anymore? When I see the DEA protecting the border against schwag coming into the country is the day I'll believe. Seriously though, why would anyone believe anything an officer of the court or Federal government says in this day and age?
My question is when will Wash. and Colo. MMJ businesses start seeing RICO violations? Look how the Feds just made it illegal for dispensaries to use armored cars. Businesses that promised, and are required in some cases, by their local municipality that they use armored vehicles for transporting cash. So how is that respecting state's rights? How is that progress? If anything the dumb-asses at the DEA have endangered the honest people they're supposed to protect. Holder and Co. are just talking out of the sides of their mouths. Again. They're just getting started with a bunch of new bullshit laws for the 21st century. Laws that keep them in charge too I bet.


Legal Pot Sellers Say Armored-Car Companies Halt Service


By Jennifer Oldham - 2013-08-28T06:01:00Z​


Steve DeAngelo says his staff may need to carry cash in personal vehicles to pay Harborside Health Center’s bills after his armored car provider told his co-founder that a federal agency ordered it to stop serving cannabis businesses.
“The only way we have to pay our bills is transporting cash from point A to point B,” said DeAngelo, executive director of the medicinal marijuana collective based in Oakland, California, with 128,000 patients.
“This includes 15 percent of our $30 million-a-year gross that goes to the cities of San Jose and Oakland and the state of California for our taxes,” he said. “This is a huge threat to the safety of my patients and staff, and beyond that it’s a huge threat to the general public.”
DeAngelo isn’t alone. Several large marijuana dispensaries in California and Colorado received similar notices from their armored vehicle services, said Steve Fox, director of government relations for the Washington-based National Cannabis Industry Association.
The U.S. Justice Department declined to comment on the matter, Ellen Canale, a spokeswoman, said by e-mail in response to repeated requests. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration referred questions to the Justice Department, its parent agency.
The end of armored-car service to some marijuana dispensaries underscores ongoing tension between federal law, under which cannabis remains illegal, and laws in 20 states and the District of Columbia that legalized medical marijuana consumption, plus measures in Colorado and Washington that allow those 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of pot.

Federal Response

Attorney General Eric Holder hasn’t provided a federal response to the laws in Washington and Colorado that will also allow retail sales of pot next year.
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the conflicts between state and federal marijuana laws on Sept. 10, Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, announced Aug. 26.
Federal laws bar banks from offering accounts to pot shops, forcing medical marijuana firms to pay their sales taxes and other bills in cash. Cannabis businesses also are unable to obtain credit cards.
DeAngelo’s car service, Dunbar Armored Inc., didn’t return calls and messages for comment.
Fox, of the cannabis trade group, said that other medical marijuana dispensaries affected by the issue didn’t want to come forward because of security concerns.

Unsecured Cash

“In Colorado, one of our larger members told us that the DEA told their armored-car provider they couldn’t provide services,” he said. “As you can imagine, no one who is being put in a situation where they have to have large amounts of cash unsecured is going to want their name in the paper.”
The suspension of armored-car service is the latest in what marijuana advocates say is an increasing number of federal enforcement actions against cannabis firms.
Federal officials have conducted 270 raids on medical cannabis providers since the start of the Obama administration, compared to 260 during George W. Bush’s eight years in office, according to a June report by Washington-based Americans for Safe Access, a nonprofit representing patients.
The review found that the Obama administration spent more than $289 million over four and a half years on enforcement, about $100 million more than Bush did in his eight years in office.

‘Safe Facility’

Harborside Health Center’s DeAngelo said his collective is being audited by the Internal Revenue Service, which asked for detailed financial records.
His seven-year-old not-for-profit assured the city of Oakland in a safety plan it filed before it opened that it would use armored car services and that this is “one of the reasons the city felt we would run a safe facility,” he said.
Rebecca Kaplan, an at-large Oakland City Council member, said the city’s confident its regulation of dispensaries keeps them safe, yet it’s concerned the end of armored-car service places residents in harm’s way.
“There is no benefit to shifting medical cannabis funds out of armored cars and into public vehicles,” said Kaplan, who was re-elected to a second four-year term last year.
“To require medical marijuana dispensaries throughout the nation to use unguarded cash systems -- no rational person wouldn’t understand they are creating an environment to support muggings, to support burglaries and to support crime,” she said.

City Attorney

Kaplan said she called the city attorney’s office to explore the city’s legal options.
DeAngelo credits Harborside’s investment in a 36-camera security system, biometric locks and a bank vault that is reinforced with 18 inches of concrete with preventing criminal incidents. Keeping cash on the premises may render that plan moot, he said.
“Some businesses do not want to go public because they fear they would be targeted for violent robberies,” he said. “I also naturally have that concern. I think this is such an outrageous threat to public security that somebody had to be willing to stand up and talk about it.”
 

TreeOfLiberty

Well-Known Member
I think the Feds will start using the IRS to aide them in prosecution and harassment of these facilities. It's not hard to foresee the Fed's strategies. They can pressure the banks to cancel all of the marijuana business accounts making the marijuana businesses rely on personal home and business vaults for cash storage, then use either the DEA to bust them on federal drug charges or the IRS to bust them on tax fraud / evasion.


They're not going to reverse the legalization measures in WA and CO no matter what they do. You won't see local WA and CO deputies and city police dept's go back to locking people up for small possession amounts nor will you see local CO leo's go back to locking people up for home growing up to 6 plants as A64 allows.


WA and CO will see the Feds use every dirty tactic there is for harassment and prosecution. I think things are going to get ugly but all it will do is shine a negative spotlight on the Federal oppression by a small minority of senators like Patrick Leahy and a very few others like him who will then start drafting bills to push thru at the Federal level to put pressure back onto the Feds in stopping the war on marijuana. I think WA and CO might pay a price of going thru hell for having legalization bills but it will only last a short time and come 2016 you'll see quite a few states do the same thing that WA and CO has done and by then whatever states pass recreational legalization , won't have to put up with the shit that the Feds are doing now and intend to do with WA and CO in 2014.


By that time , I think the Feds will have realized the overwhelming support for legalization and legislative challenges put against stopping them and that's when I think states all over will start passing marijuana legalization and you won't have to wait till a presidential election year to see a state pass legalization from support being so great.2016 and thereafter will be when legalization in the states goes into wild over drive.



Check this link out, police and sheriff depts all over are having a hissy fit about what AG Holder said. I think they see all of those big asset forfeitures in the future disappearing along with over time and federal budget grants being cut back. Those LEO bastards make me sick with their greed and addiction to oppressing freedom for the sake of financial gain on an issue that's not even a freakin crime. >

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/30/police-eric-holder-marijuana-_n_3846518.html
 
Uhmmm, do you guys actually believe anything that lying two-faced asshole Holder or that administration says anymore? When I see the DEA protecting the border against schwag coming into the country is the day I'll believe. Seriously though, why would anyone believe anything an officer of the court or Federal government says in this day and age?


I seriously share your thoughts with this entire bunch in control now . Its like welcome to my parlor said the spider to the fly (: they let people put their guard down and then pounce after its all about increased revenues , as mentioned also the IRS and DOJ will own it all. I don't trust anything to do with any bureaucrat's politicians or cops , I've never met either of any that I'd trust out of my sight.
 

growone

Well-Known Member
Holder may be a piece of crap, but lying about the enforcement policy makes no sense/benefit to the federal side
this will eventually increase the cannabiz activity a lot
they can't cope with it now, and adding to the case load doesn't help them
there will be plenty of cannabiz owners that will push the envelope
those will be called the 'illegal' operations
which may seem a fine point about increased federal tolerance, just moving the crosshair around
but it's insanely funny to watch the word game, the dam is breaking and the spin doctors will not call it legalization
 
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