A Thousand Cuts

Clunkers, cops and cluelessness.

Attorney General Eric Holder has clarified the new administration’s medical marijuana policy (see #145) by stating that the DEA will only go after pot dealers who violate both state and Federal law; i.e., anyone not sanctioned by a state where medical marijuana is legal.  So dispensaries in California and patients in Colorado with cultivation licenses should be safe from the Feds, but not illicit dealers.  It’s still not clear what this means for cases already pending in Federal courts, so it may not save Charlie Lynch, who was a licensed medical marijuana dealer in California but was tried and convicted on Federal charges, from a lengthy prison term.  And it does nothing to address the fundamentally broken drug policies at the Federal level.

On to the Daily Cuts:

148. After a six-year battle with the Feds over obscenity charges, two porn film entrepreneurs plead guilty to reduced charges, earning them up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, a far cry from the five decades they faced on the original indictment.  As Jacob Sullum points out, the prosecutor, U. S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, “seems to be a sincere moral crusader and therefore a public menace”.

149. Even though members of their own party seem lukewarm on the idea, it appears that the Obama administration still doesn’t have enough on its plate, and wants to add a revival of the Federal assault weapons ban.  This time it’s not for the children, but for the poor Mexicans caught in the crossfire of a vicious drug war.  Of course, if we Americans would just stop being such loser dope fiends, we wouldn’t need a drug war in the first place.

150. A Congresswoman from Ohio introduces a real clunker of a bill: $5,000 for any car you can drag to a dealership, to be applied towards the purchase of a new car.  Of course the automakers are supportive of this boondoggle.

151. Comic relief: What, would you rather have the cops kicking in your door?