And when they perform raids, they should be required to shout “This is a F.A.C.T. jack”! Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Counterpoint: Neither of those organizations should exist at all.
Woah there buddy, if you want housing, food and healthcare, go get incarcerated like everyone else.
Either hhs or fda.
Speaking of HHS (from NYT):
Marijuana is neither as risky nor as prone to abuse as other tightly controlled substances and has potential medical benefits, and therefore should be removed from the nation’s most restrictive category of drugs, federal scientists have concluded.
The recommendations are contained in a 250-page scientific review provided to Matthew Zorn, a Texas lawyer who sued Health and Human Services officials for its release and published it online on Friday night. An H.H.S. official confirmed the authenticity of the document.
But sadly
Last month, Michael D. Miller, a Justice Department official, defended the D.E.A.’s prerogative in making the final decision on the administration’s position.
“D.E.A. has the final authority to schedule, reschedule, or deschedule a drug under the Controlled Substances Act, after considering the relevant statutory and regulatory criteria and H.H.S.’s scientific and medical evaluation,” he wrote in a letter to Representative Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat who has pushed the D.E.A. to reconsider marijuana.
I see no motivation for the DEA to voluntarily forfeit power and money just because it’s the right thing to do. Also think of career DEA guys’ pride and ego. They are not going to easily admit they’ve been wrong and that their rhetoric has been overheated for the past 50 years.
Who is Jack?
Unfortunately it still falls under schedule 1. Even if states legalize it the federal government still considers it the same danger as heroin.
Don’t get me wrong. It shouldn’t be but until we get a federal law changing that then it’s still going to fall under DEA.
And unfortunately, the scheduling is determined by none other than the DEA itself. So I wouldn’t hold my breath on them forfeiting funding and purview over of anything as trivial as medical research or the will of the people. At least not easily or without some other political quid pro quo.
DEA ultimately has final say though. And we are definitely living in tumultuous if not unprecedented times.
I knew a guy a long time ago who said “Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms should not be a branch of the government. It should be a convenience store.”
Not that I agreed with him, but it was an amusing and unexpected take.
I give to you the ATF Convenience Store in Kingman, AZ
https://www.google.com/maps/place/ATF+Convenience+Store,+853+S+Ty+Rd,+Kingman,+AZ+86401/