Category: Opinion

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Deschedule Now!

In 1970 the 91st US Congress enacted the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), which President Nixon signed into law. The CSA established a federal policy to regulate the manufacturing, distributing, importing/exporting, and use of regulated substances. All previous federal drug laws were combined, and the CSA allowed for federal enforcement of all controlled substances. The war on drugs began.

“The war on drugs is a war on people…
It’s a really sad state of affairs
When a human being’s freedom is treated as
Nothing more than an asset or liability.
Prisons are big business in this country.
The war on drugs is nothing more than a war on people
…It’s a bullshit war, It’s a war over money!” – Corporate Avenger


On October 6, 2022 President Biden announced the first three steps he was taking to end the failed federal approach of dealing with the plant. First he ordered a pardon of all prior Federal offenses of simple possession of marijuana. That pardon didn’t free a single federal Plant Prisoner, and was a limited time offer. Biden’s second step was urging all governors to also order the same pardon for their state plant prisoners convicted of simple possession. Governors were split on Biden’s call to pardon. For step three Biden asked the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Attorney General to initiate the administrative process to review expeditiously how marijuana is scheduled under federal law.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/10/06/statement-from-president-biden-on-marijuana-reform/

Recently the Department of Health and Human Services recommended to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), to whom power is delegated under the CSA by the Attorney General, that cannabis be rescheduled to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. Apparently the recommendation was based on a scientific and medical review by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In 2016 the FDA denied a rescheduling petition and determined the medicinal plant was to remain schedule I on the CSA, as a highly addictive drug with no accepted medical use, despite in 2016 science and medical review didn’t support Cannabis’ continued schedule I placement. This all appears to be political theater to appease the now 59% of adults in the US who support legalization for medical and recreational use.

What would Cannabis rescheduled as schedule III look like? It would not federally legalize or decriminalize the plant. It would not set Jonathan Wall, Ismael Lira, Tameka Drummer, Frank Eppler, or any of the countless other federal and state Plant Prisoners free. It would not stop people from being arrested and prosecuted over the plant. Schedule III drugs are obtained through a prescription, and are generally not available over the counter.

Rescheduling would suddenly, magically make the plant considered by the eyes of the government to have low to moderate potential for abuse and/or addiction, while being less dangerous than the plant is considered now. Cannabis is currently schedule I, meaning it’s classified as having no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. A schedule III classification for Cannabis would give control over the manufacturing, distributing, importing/exporting, and use of Cannabis to the DEA.

The big question as of now seems to be will the Drug Enforcement Agency approve Cannabis as a schedule III substance? The Federal Code of Regulations has recently undergone some changes that signal the rescheduling of Cannabis to schedule III is the plan.

Title 21 Food and Drugs Part / Section
Chapter II Drug Enforcement Administration, Department of Justice 1300 – 1399
Part 1318 Controls to Satisfy the Requirements of the Act Applicable to the Manufacturing of Marihuana 1318.01 – 1318.07
§ 1318.01 Scope of this part.
§ 1318.02 Definitions.
§ 1318.03 Implementation of statutory requirements.
§ 1318.04 Specific control measures applicable to the bulk manufacture of marihuana.
§ 1318.05 Application of the public interest factors.
§ 1318.06 Factors affecting prices for the purchase and sale by the Administration of cannabis.
§ 1318.07 Non-liability of Drug Enforcement Administration.

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-II/part-1318?toc=1

The stage appears to be set for the implementation of Big Cannabis.
Marijuana is safer than alcohol, yet alcohol is not classified as a controlled substance on the CSA. Jared Allaway of safershirts.org , has been spreading the message of marijuana being safer than alcohol for years, by painting and mailing safer shirts around the world. When asked how he felt about the possibility of Cannabis becoming schedule III, Jared said “When trying to determine how to schedule Marijuana, one must consider that Marijuana is safer than alcohol.” For years many have been calling to treat Cannabis like alcohol in terms of legislation. While many activists disagreed with that call, in the case of the classification of Cannabis, the common ground now sure seems to be a call to completely remove Cannabis from the CSA, or descheduled. With alcohol not being a controlled substance, why should Cannabis be?

Cannabis prohibition has never been rooted in science, fact, nor the common good. The time is now to put a stop to this senseless prohibition of a medicinal plant that has helped countless lives. The fate of this plant is not solely in the hands of the DEA. There is something we can do. Call DEA headquarters 571-362-8487 and politely state “Cannabis should be completely removed from the CSA.” Getting those phones ringing off the hook to express the will of the people can and will make a difference. Use the hashtag #DescheduleCannabisNow on social media. Let’s get it trending and noticed. Never underestimate the power of a hashtag.

Cannabis Prohibition should not be an injustice passed down to yet another generation. Don’t give away your power by thinking you don’t have any. Stand in your power. Be courageous!

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Come On Man, Biden Really End Prohibition!

Early afternoon October 6, 2022 my usually quiet phone suddenly became very noisy. First came the news that President Biden is going to pardon all federal offenses of simple Marijuana possession. After the news spread a bit, I was asked over and over if Washington state Federal Plant Prisoner Lance Gloor was being freed. It didn’t feel good to have to deliver the news that neither Lance Gloor nor anyone else who is currently federally imprisoned for Cannabis would not be freed by Biden’s proclamation. The headlines that came out that day weren’t always clear, in fact they were really misleading! Many people are confused and do not understand what the Presidential proclamation really means, myself included. So as soon as I was able, I sought to find answers.

The US Department of Justice quickly had a page up on their website going over the proclamation Biden delivered to the country that day.  On October 6, 2022, President Biden issued a presidential proclamation that pardons federal convictions for simple marijuana possession offenses. The proclamation applies only to federal convictions, including D.C. Code offenses, and does not apply to convictions under state or  local law. 

https://www.justice.gov/pardon/presidential-proclamation-marijuana-possession

Biden’s proclamation will positively affect more than 6,500 people who were convicted on a federal misdemeanor ‘simple possession’ of marijuana charge, as well as those charged and convicted under Washington D.C. law. Amazingly, the proclamation has no effect on those convicted under state or local laws! Biden has encouraged state governors to follow his lead, but we will see if any actually do. Those who will receive a presidential pardon will have their social disabilities removed. They’ll be able to vote again, hold public office, sit on a jury, have an easier time obtaining licenses, bonding and gaining employment. A pardon signifies the president’s forgiveness. It is not an indication of innocence, and will not expunge the conviction. Eligible persons for a pardon should check the DOJ website for the pardon application. 

It is important to note that anyone charged and convicted for federal simple possession of the plant after October 6, 2022 will not be eligible for a pardon, would face up to 1 year of incarceration, and a fine of up to $1000 on a first offense. The President’s proclamation does nothing to help free Federal Plant Prisoners Lance Gloor, Donald Fuggitt, Luke Scarmazzo, Raquel Esquivel, Parker Coleman, Ferrell Scott, Pedro Moreno, Ismael Moreno, Daniel Longoria, Travis Longoria, Jose Cervantes, Gabriel Daniel Gomez, and countless others. The proclamation does nothing for Jonathan Wall and others currently awaiting sentencing on the federal level. Those who are not citizens or lawful permanent residents who were convicted of federal simple possession of Marijuana aren’t eligible for a pardon either.

While I am happy to see this positive step and for those who will receive a pardon, I don’t feel that this is nearly enough. I have come under fire for expressing my views, and for pointing out facts that I’ve written about here. I don’t say these things to attack Biden, I say them because we need to demand more. After years of advocating for Lance Gloor and other Plant Prisoners, I realize that I have different experiences from most other people. It is heartbreaking when I hear from families of prisoners about how their loved ones’ injustice has torn their family apart, as well as causing unnecessary hardship and tremendous stress. I feel deeply for these prisoners and their families. I want their living nightmares to end, and I don’t want this to happen to anyone else!

The truth is that prohibition was created from lies in order to generate obscene profits for corporations. Biden has done much damage during his time serving in government in the past. His 1994 crime bill imposed tougher prison sentences at the federal level and encouraged states to do the same. That bill provided funds for states to build more prisons, and backed grant programs for law enforcement to carry out more drug related arrests. The crime bill also banned incarcerated people from receiving Pell grants for education, which caused hundreds of academic and vocational programs for prisoners to be shut down across the nation. Thank goodness Congress reversed the Pell Grant ban for prisoners in 2021! The Department of Education has until July 2023 to restore the grant for incarcerated students.

On the campaign trail Biden made promise after promise to decriminalize cannabis and automatically expunge marijuana conventions. Time to really walk your talk Joe!

https://youtu.be/V7nQiUl6Iqw

With Biden holding the office of President of the United States of America, he could do a lot more to end federal prohibition on a global scale. I think he should do more! While addressing the nation, Biden stated that he was calling for a review to either deschedule or reschedule. I am skeptical about any government that has kept a non-toxic, medicinal plant as a schedule one drug (ignoring the science and facts for decades) will suddenly deschedule the plant. There are synthetic cannabinoids that are FDA approved for medicinal use, while the organic plant remains defined as  a drug with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse as defined in the United States drug scheduling laws.

Will the government suddenly right the wrongs of the past? I’m doubtful. Afterall prohibition began as a conspiracy to protect business interests with no regard for the people. Even today, cannabis prohibition is maintained to a degree even where the plant has some form of legalization.


I urge everyone who feels it’s beyond time that prohibition ends, to take action now. How many more generations are we willing to pass down the multiple injustices prohibition causes?  How many more lives are we willing to allow to be lost, destroyed, or needlessly suffer due to prohibition?

Please contact the White House and your representatives and politely urge them to completely remove Marijuana as a controlled substance, set all nonviolent marijuana offenders free, and to repeal all marijuana criminal laws.  I know it’s easy for many to think their voice doesn’t matter, but I have seen and even participated in many calls to action that have been successful. If the people who represent you don’t hear from you, it’s easy for them to assume you are in agreement with what they are or aren’t doing.

Like Activist Alex Gentry says…”Baby steps are for babies.”
https://instagram.com/cannarchist?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

For the love of the plant and humanity, let’s end this.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

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‘The legal stuff is garbage’: why Canada’s cannabis black market keeps thriving

North America’s biggest companies have seen their market values lose billions, prompting comparisons to dotcom bust

A customer sniffs a display sample of marijuana at a retail shop in Vancouver.
A customer sniffs a display sample of marijuana at a retail shop in Vancouver. Photograph: Elaine Thompson/APWilliam Turvill

Cannabis may be legal in Vancouver but visitors looking to score are likely to run into a seemingly counterintuitive suggestion: try the black market.

Recreational marijuana was legalised across Canada in October 2018. And yet on Reddit, the specialist forum website used by millions every day, many of Vancouver’s cannabis connoisseurs still swear by their underground supply.

This is one of the major issues facing North America’s marijuana companies, which experts say are in the midst of a dotcom-style market crash.

Canada and 11 US states have legalised recreational use of the drug, and a little over a year ago companies that cultivate and sell cannabis were seen by investors as one of the hottest tickets in town. Now billions of dollars have been wiped off the market values of the industry’s largest companies.Advertisement

The North American Marijuana Index, which tracks listed firms in the sector, has plummeted about 80% in the last year and is at its lowest value since 2016, before much legalisation had taken place.

The market capitalisation of Canopy Growth, the biggest firm in the sector by value, has fallen from $24bn in April last year to just over $6bn now, according to figures from the financial data firm Y Charts.

Around $2bn of that loss has come in the last week. Coronavirus fears, which have dragged down stocks across the globe, have not helped. But a large part of Canopy’s latest share price drop came after the firm was forced to admit that it was struggling in Canada.

The company announced last Wednesday that it would be closing two cultivation greenhouses in British Columbia – the western Canadian province where Vancouver is found – leading to 500 job losses. Canopy, which will be focusing on more cost-effective outdoor cultivation, also cancelled plans for a third greenhouse in Ontario.

Bosses blamed the cutbacks on Canada’s recreational market, which they said had “developed slower than anticipated”.

The consensus on Vancouver’s cannabis-focused Reddit feeds is that the legal market is struggling to attract buyers because its product is more expensive but lower in quality than the black market alternative.

“The government’s pot is too expensive. The government doesn’t show you a picture of what you’re buying before you buy it, so you cannot be informed as a consumer. The government weed has been full of bugs, mouldy or too dry in some cases, and often takes too long to get there,” one user said.

“The legal stuff is garbage,” said another Reddit user. A third said: “Friends don’t let friends smoke government weed.”

The sentiment is not confined to the realms of Reddit. Canadian government survey results released last month found that 40% of the country’s marijuana consumers admit to having obtained the drug illegally since legalisation.

Omar Yar Khan, national cannabis sector lead at the consultancy firm Hill & Knowlton, says legal sales have fallen short of expectations for a number of reasons. Legal prices – driven up by taxes – have been a factor in helping keep the black market “as rampant as ever”, he says.

But Khan, who advises several cannabis companies on public affairs, also believes firms have suffered in Canada at the hands of regulations that restrict their ability to develop brands.

There are strict rules around advertising for cannabis companies. Khan said: “It’s very hard to draw loyal consumers away from the illicit market to a legal market when there is very little brand identity amongst the consumer groups.”

Companies have also been held back in their efforts to open stores, often by local authorities that are against cannabis being sold in their areas.

“There just aren’t enough legal licensed points of sale across the country,” Khan said. “I think in Ontario now we’re up to about 30. But there are over a thousand beverage alcohol points of sale. So if it’s not convenient for consumers to access the product through the legal system, why would they ever leave the legacy illicit market?”

Anthony Dutton, a co-founder and former chief executive of Cannex – a US-focused marijuana firm that is listed in Canada and was recently renamed 4Front following a takeover – believes share prices in the sector have been driven down by certain firms overpromising to investors. He believes some of these companies are likely to collapse or be taken over by stronger rivals in the future.

Dutton, who remains a shareholder in 4Front and still advises the firm, likens the current woes of listed cannabis companies to the dotcom crash of the early 2000s.

“The market got ahead of itself, started to drink its own Kool-Aid, and it was a classic example of any bubble,” he said. “So what we’re seeing now, thankfully, is a lot of the companies that probably should never have been financed – and probably should never have gone public in the first place – are slowly withering on the vine and they’ll just disappear.

“Now there will be a consolidation around half a dozen strong operating companies, including 4Front, and those will be the companies that will take it into the next cycle.”

He added: “It’s just like in the dotcom boom. Oracle, Microsoft and other big companies were all around then, and they were profitable. And when the little companies began to fail, Microsoft and Oracle and the others picked up the ones they wanted, and the others they just let die.”

Kevin Sabet, the head of Smart Approaches to Marijuana – a campaign group that opposes lifting laws on the drug – says the legalisation of cannabis has been a “boon” to the black market in many areas because it means consumers are less concerned about trying the product.

Sabet, who has advised White House administrations on drug policy, also believes cannabis companies have misled their investors and politicians about the societal and financial benefits of legalisation.

“The cannabis business has been oversold to investors as a sure thing to get a great return,” he said. “I think there was a big hype over cannabis that has ended up being a reputation it could never live up to.”

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Opioids, cannabis and criminal justice reform helped undermine this decade’s War on Drugs

With an extraordinary number of Americans suffering, the door has opened to understanding and treating the pain of drug use rather than apply brute force.

Illustration of graves with drug paraphernalia engraved on them.

While the opioid crisis didn’t begin in this decade, it did accelerate to unprecedented heights, with record-breaking death rates leading to a drop in life expectancy.

This much we know: Americans like to do drugs. That might explain why a prescient headline in the satirical publication The Onion stands as one of the most enduring comments on American drug enforcement — “Drugs Win Drug War.”

There are ongoing arrests for cannabis and deep racial disparities among those detained, but the change in the trend line is profound.

While that article was published in 1998, it was only during the past decade that its parody devolved into grim reality. In many ways, this reality has been an aching nadir, with more lives lost annually to overdoses than AIDS, gun violence and car crashes. But this past decade also brought its highs (pun intended): Recreational marijuana prohibitions started to fall in a domestic domino effect as one state after another accepted that it was pointless to criminalize the use of such a widely consumed drug. And at root, it is this shifting attitude on the role of the criminal justice system in prosecuting drug use that signifies the most fundamental change in our love-hate relationship with controlled substances.

Though far from over, the War on Drugs has felt more like a tug of war across this past decade rather than a righteous crusade, with reformers trying to fend off the country’s prohibitionist impulse as it makes a last-gasp effort to ramp up arrests and enhance penalties. And the reformers have public opinion on their side — the decade comes to an end with a majority of Americans favoring a more compassionate approach than locking users up. The criminalization of drug use is both out of step with what people want and what the evidence shows to work; in fits and starts, policy, policing and the law are finally starting to catch up.

Originally published on Dec. 29, 2019, By Zachary Siegel
at https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/opioids-pot-criminal-justice-reform-helped-undermine-decade-s-war-ncna1108231