Feds warn Oakland that its marijuana law illegal

spini4

spini4

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Federal prosecutors have warned Oakland officials that the city's marijuana farm ordinance violates U.S. law.

In a letter Tuesday, the U.S. attorney's office says the pot cultivation law allowing industrial pot farms would put the farmers in criminal and civil jeopardy. The City Council approved the law in July.

The San Francisco Chronicle says California Northern District U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag's letter marks the first time federal authorities have sent a written warning on Oakland's ordinance.

Haag wrote that marijuana is a controlled substance and she says federal authorities do not pursue "seriously ill" people who use medicinal marijuana approved by state law.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/02/03/state/n052222S53.DTL#ixzz1CuLaRvsL
 
interested to see how this pans out. the same thing is going to happen if california decides to legalize so this will be a prequel to that battle
 
The federal government is clearly violating their own mandates! A substance attains schedule I status when "it has no medical use," among other things. Late last year, the AMA openly acknowledged that cannabis does have a legitimate medical use.

As soon as the AMA released their findings, cannabis should have been rescheduled. Or am I wrong?

This government just doesn't seem like a democracy anymore.
 
I'd really like to see Californians stand up to the feds.

I think the feds are already fucked. Obama won't do shit before the election and they can't put the smoke back in the bong so to speak.
 
Interesting development.
All we can really do is watch and wait.

Will the evil feds take away the medicine from the cancer, AIDS, and MS patients?

Or will the small good guys rise up and fight off the insanity?

Stay tuned for the next episode of...
the War on Drugs!
 
I believe it is the DEA that makes the final legal determination of how to schedule drugs.

The DEA made MDMA schedule I in 1985 AGAINST the advice of the medical experts who testified at the hearings. The DEA does not care about the science, they only care about political policy.

The same holds true for marijuana. The science clearly proves it is relatively harmless to your health. Yet, they refuse to reclassify it. They will never admit they've been wrong all these years. You can't expect them to be rational.

And the US government is NOT a democracy. It's a republic. There's a difference. If you want change, educate yourself about how the system works and then get involved to make it work for you.

mecaib said:
The federal government is clearly violating their own mandates! A substance attains schedule I status when "it has no medical use," among other things. Late last year, the AMA openly acknowledged that cannabis does have a legitimate medical use.

As soon as the AMA released their findings, cannabis should have been rescheduled. Or am I wrong?

This government just doesn't seem like a democracy anymore.
Click to expand...
 
So the feds aren't going by the Constitution anymore then? Tenth Amendment to the good ole Bill of Rights says state law supersedes federal law.... I'd love to see the feds try and crack down in Oakland only to have to pay the city millions in the counter suit.
 
QuasiModo said:
So the feds aren't going by the Constitution anymore then? Tenth Amendment to the good ole Bill of Rights says state law supersedes federal law.... I'd love to see the feds try and crack down in Oakland only to have to pay the city millions in the counter suit.
Click to expand...

The 10th amendment does NOT say state law supersedes federal law. It says that powers not granted to the federal government nor prohibited to the states by the Constitution are reserved to the states or the people.

The Commerce Clause is an enumerated power in the US Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3). In combination with the Necessary and Proper Clause, case law has affirmed the constitutionality of federal drugs because drug trade affects interstate commerce.

We've got to reform the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 before you can expect any real policy change from the US government. Federal law enforcement is obligated to enforce it while it remains on the books as is.
 
Federal law enforcement is obligated to enforce it while it remains on the books as is.
Click to expand...

As aware of the law you are, you should also be aware that the DEA is legally obligated to oppose any rescheduling of a Schedule I drug. Pretend they thought marijuana should be rescheduled. What good would it do? They have to oppose it any way. That's why it's so rare that anything goes from Schedule I to Schedule anything. Realistically there are a handful of compounds in Schedule I that don't belong scheduled at all. Then there are compounds in CII that should be CI and, and numerous others that should be moved around.

If we are to have any success we must be pragmatic and willing to give in where it's necessary to achieve a valuable goal.

We will not see the CSA abolished anytime soon- not unless the rabid Tea Party bastards manage to make some phenomenal gains in the next few elections. They'll have to take the Senate and the House- and take over enough of the GOP that they can actually pass their own brand of extreme libertarian. The CSA would be nice, but there's lots of other stuff they'd do that's not so nice.

If all of us were to band together we could probably get individual states' CSA-equivalents reworked. To even have a chance of getting it done would require a handful of things-
1) No unscheduling any CI or CII drugs.
2) Unscheduling a compound will probably require the addition of a new one (fortunately there are numerous compounds that should be scheduled given the current standards- I don't think anyone thinks that BDPC should be left legal- it's too potent for recreational use, but just right for a chemical weapon
3) Avoid anything that's going to be too controversial (ie, things that'd derail the process).

I've started working on a draft that would accomplish these things, because here in Wisconsin, libertarian Republicans are now fully in control, and the odds that we could get our current legislation revised are as good as they've ever been. I also know a couple of our freshmen assemblymen, one quite well (though it's been a while since we've been in contact).

If anyone is particularly interested in taking part in this, please let me know.
 
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