It was all over the news: on January 22, the DEA raided a California Medical Cannabis Clinic in Lake Tahoe, and two medical cannabis grow houses in Colorado. This was two days after Barack Obama's inauguration, and several months after the President vowed on the campaign trail, to stop Federal raids on medical cannabis providers.
In spite of those promises, the raids and harassment continue. Back in August of last year Nancy Pelosi spoke [2] on CNN about the medical cannabis and Federal policy. She said their just were not enough support in Congress to get the laws changed, and she called on the public to contact their representatives, and make a lot of noise.
OK Nancy: how's this for noise? No funding of Democratic initiatives, or candidates until your start representing the interests of a majority of the voting public who believe our drug policies are punitive, unfair, and simply designed to pack as many people into prison as possible (with great success, I might add, since the United States, with 5% of the world's population, incarcerates 25% of the world's prison population.)
So, dear reader, if you're happy having 1 out of every 100 adults in the US in prison, and 1 out out every 32 adults in prison, jail, on probation or paroled, then keep on sending your hard earned dollars to the Dems.
But if you think drug use should be primarily a public health issue, and feel that nearly 1,000,000 arrests each year for cannabis offenses is just plain wrong, there here is a solution for you:
Do what I have been doing since I heard about the January raids. I have been answering all phone calls and returning all fundraising mail I get from the Democratic Party with this response:
“I will not give another cent to the Democratic Party until they support a complete overhaul of our Federal drug policy; stop the Federal persecution of medical cannabis users, providers and caregivers; and remove Cannabis from it present Schedule I classification.”
If you are willing to rise to this challenge and you do speak with fundraisers on the phone, be polite, but tell them in no uncertain terms what your position is, that you will no longer be donating until the party's policies change, and ask them to please give this feedback to their supervisors.
Money talks volumes, and it seems to be the language politicians understand. Let's put that unfortunate reality to work for us, and stop this abuse of civil and human rights.
