US Led Pogrom on Medical Marijuana Patients

Ok we have all heard of the US’s war on drugs, we in Canada aren’t totally devoid of the ravages of this war, but for the most part there are only minor skirmishes and for the most part Cops leave the medicinal marijuana users alone, however in the States they are taking the war to new extremes. Even the DEA should be ashamed of its tactics of late. I am going to give kudos to the Drug Reporter, a feature over at AlterNet, for this one. You see the late great Bill Hicks once said that the war on drugs is no war at all, since in a war you need to have two armies fighting against each other, while there are armed drug dealers fighting back this is not the normal case. Of late the DEA has been picking on honest businesspeople who are trying to run a State sanctioned business, but since the US Federal Law does not sanction the business the DEA has been persecuting them, thus the renaming of the war on drugs to the pogrom on medicinal Marijuana Patients.

For those who don’t know a pogrom is an organized attack, massacre, or persecution. Usually this term is reserved for the Nazi Porgrom against the Jews during WWII, and I hope no one sees this as marginalizing the suffering the Nazi’s caused the Jews. Pogrom is the perfect word for what the DEA is doing to medicinal marijuana dispensaries. Take the case of Ronnie Naulls, an ordinary businessman with two successful businesses who found himself with a state license to use medicinal marijuana for chronic pain. Upon discovering that he would have to drive to Los Angeles for the drug he started up a third business, the Healing Nations Collective, a medicinal marijuana dispensary. While some dispensaries were using loopholes and fuzzy tax laws to avoid paying much in the way of taxes Naulls paid his taxes in full without complaint, and profits from the dispensary went to local and national cancer organizations. Basically he is the holy grail of marijuana activists, pure as the driven snow on paper. Anyone want to guess what happens next?

July 17, 2007 5:50am, DEA agents invade Naulls home and business, invade is actually too weak a word, they stormed his house and business. Armed to the teeth flying in with helicopters and everything. It was a raid that would look good in a Hollywood movie. They seized everything, his home, his accounts, his businesses; they took him to the cleaners basically. And that was the fun part. Child protective services stepped in next and took his kids. Naulls has three daughters, ages ranging from 1 up to 5. Naulls has never been charged with breaking any state law. Everything he did was by the letter of the law, however federally marijuana dispensaries are still illegal.

What is this pogrom on medicinal marijuana accomplishing? Well as far as I can tell the only thing it is accomplishing is more support from Americans FOR medicinal marijuana. Even Republican presidential hopefuls are coming out supporting medicinal marijuana. So bring in on DEA make more martyrs like Naulls, you will make yourselves obsolete in no time. Of course I say so safely from my desk in Canada, where the DEA can’t touch me, unless I dare send seeds across the boarder.