Please give me links to recent busts of legit medical grows that go against what Obama said. Maybe they had too many plants or exceeded some law? I thought this shit was finally over and settled.
does this sound good to u?
Pressing Obama for meaningful change
By Dale Gieringer California NORML
Encouraged by the election, cannabis advocates are calling on President-elect Obama to make good on his pledge for change. In particular they want Obama to fulfill his one major pledge on cannabis, namely to end the DEA’s medical marijuana raids.
As stated in a release by the Obama for America campaign: “Many states have laws that condone medical marijuana, but the Bush Administration is using federal drug enforcement agents to raid these facilities and arrest seriously ill people. Focusing scarce law enforcement resources on these patients who pose no threat while many violent and highly dangerous drug traffickers are at large makes no sense. Senator Obama will not continue the Bush policy when he is president.”
In furtherance of this pledge, advocates are urging the new administration to respect state cannabis laws; desist from arrest and prosecution of medical marijuana defendants; and pardon federal medical marijuana convicts, many of whom face lengthy sentences.
There is little expectation that the administration will move quickly or dramatically to change federal drug policy. Drug reform received disappointingly scant attention in this year’s campaign. At a minimum, however, reformers are hopeful that Obama will order executive agencies to re-examine Bush administration policies and give a fair hearing to the mounting scientific evidence for reform. To this end, advocates are urging the administration to staff the Office of National Drug Control Policy with directors who have a background in public health, addiction and treatment rather than law enforcement or drug war advocacy.
Advocates are particularly hopeful that the administration can be persuaded to lift restrictions on cannabis research. In particular, they are pressing for DEA to stop blocking a license for a medical cannabis research garden at the University of Massachusetts, and for NIDA to unblock access to research cannabis by approving a vaporizer research protocol by California NORML and MAPS. Both projects have been stalled for five years.
Beyond this, advocates are urging the administration to approve a pending petition to reschedule cannabis for medical use. The petition, filed by a coalition of patients and reform groups, has been stalled by the Bush administration for six years. A likely response for Obama would be to appoint an inter-agency commission to review the status of medical cannabis, with the ultimate resolution taking several years.
In the longer run, cannabis advocates are urging Obama to give serious consideration to decriminalization, a policy he supported as a State Senator. However, prospects for any such move remain distant. Despite recent electoral victories for cannabis in Massachusetts and Michigan, there is little inclination in Congress to change cannabis laws.
Initial indications are that cannabis reformers may have a tough row to hoe. Leading Obama advisors, including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Vice-President Biden, have a record of hostility to reform. The directors of Obama’s transition team for ONDCP are Christopher Putala, an ex-staffer for Sen. Biden’s Judiciary Committee who helped write anti-drug bills, and Donald Vareen, who opposed medical marijuana while working in Drug Czar McCaffrey’s office.
The DEA has shown no signs of letting up during the Obama transition, having raided the Garden of Eden, a licensed dispensary in Alameda County, nine days after the election. Marijuana advocates must apply pressure to take advantage of Obama’s opening for change. Make your views known at: change.gov/page/s/yourvision or via canorml.org.
the garden of eden was only like 12 plants with a week to go before harvest and was cut down by the feds.