Choom Gang Alumnus Increases Repression of Marijuana Smokers

The high school and college pothead Barack Obama, having clawed his way up the ladder of the U.S. political system to the top, is using the power of the presidency to increase the repression of people who did what he used to do (and did a LOT) earlier in life- namely get high. 

He is increasing the Federal budget for “war on drugs” repression, proposing that Congress appropriate over $14.5 billion for the repression of recreational drug use.  He is lavishing these billions not just on the Department of “Justice” (criminal persecution) but also on the already-gargantuan Department of “Homeland Security” (a mega-conglomerate of various agencies with repressive functions), the White House’s own in-house drug repression office, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (whose boss is the so-called “drug czar,” and whose main job is to be chief anti-drug propagandist), and the Department of “Defense” (War), notwithstanding the fact that under the Posse Comitatus Act, passed in 1878, it is illegal for the U.S. military to have law enforcement functions. But that’s been a dead letter for years, same as the so-called Bill of Rights. The military gets about $1.3 billion for “drug war” repression activities. And Obama is tossing another $187 million to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (on top of the billions it already gets) to lock up MORE people the drug warriors will presumably catch in their nets. [1]

Obama wants a huge increase of 20% in funding for so-called drug task forces, which are gangs of Federal, State, and local police who not only target people for imprisonment and conduct terror raids on homes, but steal hundreds of millions of dollars a year in property and cash from people in so-called “civil forfeiture” seizures, where no crime is charged to the victim, no arrest made, but the stolen assets are claimed to be “tainted” by coming from the sale of drugs. No evidence is needed as there is no court procedure. The victims have to spend thousands of dollars to challenge these thefts in court and prove that the stolen assets ARE NOT from drugs. Needless to say, given the expense and burden of proof, most victims are forced to eat their losses. This corrupt, Mexican-police-style “legal” theft has gotten so widespread that even “respectable” media outlets like The New Yorker, the Washington Post, and NPR have been forced to run stories about it recently. [2]

These increases are not because Obama is under any political pressure (if anything, the pressure is in the opposite direction these days). This is not to appease any reactionaries (another thing he does a lot of). This is something he’s doing because he wants to, and under the radar (i.e. without mentioning it and hoping it passes unnoticed).

He just gave a nationally-televised speech to Congress, that annual ritual called the “State of the Union Address.” He did a lot of bloviating on various matters during that speech. He had the chance then to explain why repression against people seeking pleasure by taking certain substances  needed to be increased. (And attacking the suppliers of those products is part of attacking the ultimate consumers, by making the products vastly more expensive, risky to obtain, and unavailable in many cases.)

As is almost always the case with Obama, the reality of his oppressive, anti-human actions is disguised underneath mendacious rhetoric. The Pied Piper President’s budget document blithely claims that "a 21st Century approach to drug policy that outlines innovative policies and programs and recognizes that substance use disorders are not just a criminal justice issue, but also a major public health concern" and calls for "an evidence-based plan for real drug policy reform, spanning the spectrum of prevention, early intervention, treatment, recovery support, criminal justice reform, effective law enforcement, and international cooperation."

 

We can discount the sops to “humane” approaches to so-called “drug abuse.” As far as “criminal justice [sic] reform,” if it amounts to anything at all, be assured it will only mean a slight lessening of the screws on some victims caught in the claws of the massive domestic repression apparatus of the U.S. The U.S. has the world’s largest prison population. Larger than China’s even, which has over four times the population of the U.S. The U.S., with a population of 311 million (a mere 4% of the total world population of 7 billion, or 7,000 millions) imprisons over 2 million people currently, 25% of all the prisoners on earth. It imprisons almost one in every 100 adults in the country.

At a time a couple of years ago when Russia’s Putin pardoned and freed 1,000 Russian prisoners, Obama countered by commuting the sentences of a grand total of eight prisoners. And not even immediately: some were forced to serve more months in prison first, having already been locked up for years on drug charges. (What sort of Jesuitical moral calculus Obama The Thoughtful used to determine to the precise month the “right” amount of prison time for these victimless crimes, we are forced to guess at. But why bother.)

Judging by the record of the repressive reign of Obama and his Torquemada, Eric Holder Jr. ( a rich corporate lawyer and Obama’s attorney general, the head of the Federal Department of “Justice,” who during the reign of William Clinton was the number two in the DO”J” and shared responsibility for various state crimes such as the extermination of the Branch Davidian religious cult in Waco, Texas. [3]), any tweaks to the system of oppression will be exceedingly minor.

 

And “effective law enforcement” is ALWAYS code for more police power, more police brutality, more arrests, and of course and inevitably, more imprisonment.

Some “reform.”

[Where states have legalized medical marijuana, Obama has sicced the DEA {Drug Enforcement Administration, the corrupt and murderous Federal narc) on the legal marijuana dispensaries and prosecuted them under Federal drug laws. For more on Obama’s nasty record of repression regarding recreational drugs, see “From the Choom Gang to Drug Warrior, Barack Obama Keeps Bogarting Joints,” the daily beast.com, May 4th, 2013.]

1] Repressive agencies have proliferated like poisonous weeds in America over the last several decades, as our rulers apparently feel insecure about their ability to keep us in our places. The popular upsurges of the not-even-a-decade from about 1965-1972 also put a scare in them. Not only are there officially sixteen agencies in the so-called “intelligence community,” but numerous different arms and programs of the repressive Leviathan are devoted to stomping out recreational drug use. Not content with an entire Federal police agency devoted solely to drug repression, the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration, which has a long and sordid history of crimes including murder, which Obama want to give $2.5 billion to), there is also on the Federal level the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (another half billion bucks), $293 million for the Office of Justice Programs (an increase of $50 million), and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program, which is being cut to “only” $193 million. And Obama only wants $307 million for the White House’s very own drug war office, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which is a reduction. And other Federal agencies use the drug laws to attack people, and provide “intelligence,” such as the NSA passing along drug activity it finds in its total surveillance of phone calls and emails.

Of course, the Republicans who now control Congress might want to “outbid” Obama in repression and increase these figures. 

2] Over the years Libertarians and some civil libertarians have tried to raise awareness of police this police thieving. For a number of detailed New Yorker articles on the matter, go to http://www.newyorker.com/search and enter “civil forfeiture” in the search box.

For an unusual case- unusual because the victims had the wherewithal to pay tens of thousands in legal fees, AND were able to get their stolen money back, see  “Obama AG nominee Loretta Lynch quietly dropped $450,000 civil forfeiture case a week before hearings,” rawstory.com, January 26, 2015.

Most of the time the amounts seized are smaller, even $50. Personal electronic items are a favorite of the thieves. Cars, boats, houses, and any object of value you can imagine gets stolen by American “law enforcement.”

Another notorious case involves a small grocery store. See “The grabbing hand of the law” in the right-wing capitalist cheerleading British mag., The Economist. (Nov. 2^nd, 2013.)

The ACLU points out that police like to target racial minorities and the poor. (Easy pickings!)

The Institute for Justice (a public interest law firm) describes a number of outrageous cases of government theft (“asset forfeiture”) on its website. They also have a report, “Policing for Profit,” and statistics.

This particular U.S. nightmare has been going on in its current form for thirty years.

These cases underline the fact that the “war on drugs” is really a war on people- whether they choose to seek pleasure by taking substances the government disapproves of, or not.

3] See “Waco: The Rules of Engagement.”