DEA Stonewalls Marijuana Reclassification

For the third time in nearly 40 years, the Drug Enforcement Administration has refused to reclassify marijuana as anything other than a Schedule I narcotic, meaning it has a high potential for abuse and no known medical uses. That likely comes as a shock to the many people living in states where medical marijuana is available for the treatment or relief of any number of conditions.

It is unreasonable that the federal government continues to take such a narrow stance on a substance that sixteen states and our nation's capital have determined indeed contributes to an improved quality of life medically. Deputy Attorney General James Cole reversed the 2009 memo drafted by his predecessor that told U.S. attorneys not to focus federal resources on prosecuting individuals involved with medical uses of marijuana by stating that commercial operations involving cultivation, distribution or selling  marijuana, even where authorized by state law are "fair game" for prosecution.

This is an unnecessary and unwanted intrusion into citizens of states that have decided to allow the use of marijuana for medical treatments. It's true that federal law trumps individual state laws, but enforcement only occurs when the federal government has an ax to grind. We are not looking at one or two rogue states that have taken a bold stand to allow the use of medical marijuana; over one-fourth of states have made that determination. More states are considering making the move, but concerns such as the loss of use of tax monies derived from the sale of medical marijuana hold back some legislation.

People who've been quietly advocating for the legalization of the use of medical marijuana or the decriminalization of marijuana need to take the time to make their voices heard, whether through a letter, email, or telephone call to their elected officials. We need the federal government to represent the views of the majority.

The American People Need to Demand Accountability of Government Officials

Read the news on almost any given day and you're likely to encounter at least one item that demonstrates poor planning, poor decision making, or outright incompetence in some governmental agency. In recent news, we've learned that a great amount of the illegal marijuana crops grown in the United States are actually grown in our national parks. We've also learned that the Bureau of Land Management is contemplating euthanizing 30,000 wild horses in their care because the population of wild horses will break the Bureau's $1 billion annual budget.

Before we react to the information in these articles, we need to take a few moments to dissect how and why the situations have occurred in the first place. In this era of instant information, each of us can become so overloaded with info that there is little time for more than a knee-jerk reaction to what we read/hear. I believe this plays right into the plans of our elected officials and those in government jobs.

Instead of each of us--all of us--taking a step back and asking "How did this situation come to be in the first place?" we react to what we've read, hoping that a quick or easy solution will manifest itself and we can move on to something else.

Think about it: If you went to your boss and reported that a situation under your control had gone awry, would your boss simply shake his/her head and readily agree to increase your budget? I doubt it. There would be lots of explaining to do about how you let the situation become what it was, and depending on the severity of the situation, your job may be in jeopardy. That is common sense. But all of that goes out the window when it is governmental agencies who fail to plan and/or act in the best interest of the American citizens by doing their jobs competently.

How is it that we have a federal immigration department, and yet more than 12 million illegal immigrants live within our borders? How can we believe that a government that can't control our borders can then keep us safe from terrorists? The federal government has long waged its "war on drugs," yet on property within that same government's control there are crops of marijuana?

Until we as citizens demand accountability of our elected officials and those working government agencies, these type of things, and more, will continue, draining the taxpayer coffers for inefficient and sometimes blatant incompetency. This type of behavior would not be tolerated in our private sector jobs; it should not be tolerated in government.