Citizens should be able to rely on what government officials say.But that doesn't work if the government does not know what it is saying, how to say it, or does not know what everyone thought they said.
For example, how do young children develop when their parents or their teachers are chronically inconsistent?
What do they learn from an example of punishing them for something they told them it was ok for them to do a bit earlier?
They learn to not trust authority, because confusion is not a foundation for trust in any way shape or form.
On the medical marijuana front, the Obama Administration meets the old Indian adage "forked man speaks with white tongue", because the Obama Administration has said:
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws, under new policy guidelines to be sent to federal prosecutors Monday.(Huffington Post, October 2009, emphasis added). That induced the potential for a consistency in states that wanted to pass laws licensing all such distribution.
Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws.
The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.
Fourteen states allow some use of marijuana for medical purposes: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
Now the Obama administration is muddying the waters, leaving the hope of a clear policy behind in the dust, yes, in the cloudy dust of confusion:
This will certainly have a chilling effect on the types of businesses that open in medical marijuana states (and rest assured, they will continue to open). In this way, it is a huge step back from the Ogden memo.(Opposing Views). Yet, last week state licensed small operators providing medical marijuana to patients with doctor's prescriptions were indicted in the State of Washington:
If the spirit of the Ogden memo was to create a sense of consistency in federal enforcement,to let patients and those who supply their medicine feel safe within their own states, and make states feel confident crafting their own laws to best control medical marijuana, then Cole’s statement is a major reversal.
But is it open season on dispensaries? Probably not.
Just because the DOJ has said that they can and may prosecute anyone involved in medical marijuana distribution, does not mean that they will. If the DOJ is publicly saying that this new statement does not reflect a change in policy, there is no guarantee that they are going to suddenly start prosecuting legitimate businesses in places with clear regulations to determine their compliance with state law – especially in the case of smaller operations.
July 20, 2011 - Jerry Laberdee, Dennis Whited, Russell Blake, Charles Wright and Jon Vivian have been indicted on federal charges that arose from a crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries in Spokane, Washington earlier this year. The charges carry maximum penalties of 20 years in prison and fines up to $250,000.(California NORML). Actually, the largest penalty in that three-count indictment calls for a minimum 5 years to a maximum of 40 years in prison, followed by 4 years to life of "supervised release", a form of parole / probation.
It is as if these people who were relying on public policy statements of the federal government, as well as complying with state law, are now being treated as harsh as murderers are (the Norway mass murderer can only get 21 years), for relying on government statements, then, based on those statements, going forth to help people in chronic, doctor verified, pain.
It appears that there was a vortex of un-American entrapment, in as much as it appears that these medicinal servants were sucked into some political train wreck by confused government propaganda, which is a dysfunctional policy that sucks to high heaven in any supposed democracy!
The government is behaving like an Alzheimer sufferer who is dazed and confused, doing one thing one minute, then doing the opposite a minute later.
To destroy these American lives with such a hypocritical state of confusion makes it criminal IMO; so I can see no logical reason for the "government" to expect any trust, henceforth, from the populace.
Especially at a time when the "mature government talks on the national debt" (wink, wink) are sapping the nation of any trust whatsoever in its government.
Back stabbing the populace is the most terrible thing a government can do to the people it took an oath to be forthright with and above-board to.
The next post in this series is here.
The policy is mystifying many observers: Link
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