Growing Pot Remains a Felony in California

Remember the bill that would have allowed California prosecutors to charge pot growers with a misdemeanor instead of a felony? Not gonna happen. Today the California Assembly rejected A.B. 1017, sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-Calif.), by a vote of 36 to 24. California NORML's Dale Gieringer comments:

The state legislature has once again demonstrated its incompetence when it comes to dealing with prison crowding. With California under court order to reduce its prison population, it is irresponsible to maintain present penalties for non-violent drug offenses.  It makes no sense to keep marijuana growing a felony, when assault, battery, and petty theft are all misdemeanors. Legislators have once again caved in to to the state's law enforcement establishment, which has a  vested professional interest in maximizing drug crime.

Last week, after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered California to reduce its prison population as a remedy for Eighth Amendment violations, Gieringer noted that the state's prisoners include 25,000 drug offenders.

Comments

[Episiarch]

Legislators have once again caved in to to the state's law enforcement establishment, which has a vested professional interest in maximizing drug crime

Ding ding ding ding! Is it just me, or does it seem increasingly like the major opposition to MJ legalization is emerging as the DEA, cops, and prison guards, and not so much scared politicians and prohibitionists?

[Hugh Akston]

Plus, it gives politicians an easy out to say they "side with law enforcement" and sound like they are doing something noble.

[Doktor Kapitalism]

Hitler sides with the SS, right?

[SWAT Team....]

Pot-House SWAT raids also make great headlines.

[R C Dean]

It makes no sense to keep marijuana growing a felony, when assault, battery, and petty theft are all misdemeanors.

Anyone who doesn't see the utter insanity of pot = felony, while assault = misdemeanor, is a mental defective.

[R C Dean]

Hey, speaking of, what is the commentariat's take on LA Noire?

[sloopyinca]

No clue, but I will share a bit of movie knowledge I'll bet nobody on here knew until now.

PJ O'Rourke wrote the screenplay for Easy Money with Rodney Dangerfield.

[Episiarch]

"Why don't you put your heads together and make an ass out of yourself!"

[sloopyinca]

Best line came from Julio: "I'm so bad, I should be in detention."

[WarrenT]

Thread jack.

Listening to lefties and statists in general talk about economics is like listening to a dog try to explain what a vacuum cleaner is.

http://gawker.com/5808166/tea-.....d-standard

If they react this way to innocuous enough basic gold-standard stuff can you imagine what would happen in a Hayekian free-banking conversation?

[Pedant]

As a group that ostensibly embraces the concept of evolution, lefties sure seem to have a hard time grokking other emergent phenomena.

[Pedant]

I'm speaking, of course, about market-based money, not the price-fix version of the gold standard.

[cynical]

As a group that bitches about the human impact on the delicate balance of ecosystems, they don't seem to give much of a shit about hamhandedly making drastic, thoughtless, emotionally-based changes to the human ecosystem, ie civil society and the economy.

[WarrenT]

Thank you misanthrope360 for this absolute gem....

"I remember one day in AP American History, maybe we were talking about the gold standard, the teacher held a dollar bill up in front of the class and asked us if we knew what it stood for. I think some of us might have guessed gold or silver or I don't know what else. The teacher kept shaking her head and finally said, "This stands for trust." Meaning that the only thing backing up the value of a dollar is our trust that that dollar is backed up by the "full faith and credit" of the United States.

Phrases like that--"The full faith and credit of the United States"--tend to get me a little choked up. Maybe because they represent the idea of this country. For all the flaws we have, for all the terrible things that we've done, the idea of the U.S.--that we're a pluralistic nation of laws, that anyone can come here and start fresh, and work hard and do well, that we're part of an ongoing experiment that was put in motion over 200 years ago and maybe we're not doing so great right now, but hey, we're working on it--is still maybe the greatest idea in the history of mankind. I truly believe we are the greatest country on earth.

Which is why I think these Tea Party people are such a malevolent force in this country. Because they hate the idea of the United States. For them the U.S. is not an ongoing experiment. For them the Constitution was handed down on stone tablets by God to George Washington. Everything we've done since then, all the tinkering, all the self-improvement we've made as a society, was at best misguided and at worst "Socialist" and "anti-freedom." Never mind that the founders couldn't even agree on what exactly the United States was. They have a view of the Constitution similar to their view of the Bible, which is that it is God's immutable word, forever unchanging.

Anyway, to get back to the whole trust thing. That dollar bill in your hand's value is based on your trust. And what those Tea Party people are doing is trying to undermine your trust in the full faith and credit of the United States. Inflation starts when people stop believing that their money has any value. So if we do have another inflationary crisis, it will be the Tea Party's fault for stoking the flames."

Shorter:

THE TEA PARTY HATES AMERICA BECAUSE THEY DON'T TRUST THE GOVERNMENT'S DOLLAR!!!!!!! I CRY TEARS OF RAGE NOW!!!

[mad libertarian guy]

That entire shitpile of writing was a huge bag, filled with stupid.

[deified]

That was a monument to stupid.

This is a guy whom I would refuse to skull-fuck on account that he might make my "head" dumber.

I'll be here all week.

[Last Man Standing]

My sarc alarm is ringing

[Some Call Me. . .Tim]

Tristan Thayer had grown his own, his mother said. After he died, Max used what remained of his brother's supply. His mother said he tried buying some on the street in Rutland. "Once was enough." She decided to take her chances and grow her own.
In 2007, before the family could harvest their second crop, police found the garden in a helicopter flyover, Sue Thayer said. "That was kind of traumatic."
Because she had more than 25 plants, she was charged with a felony.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.....gal-choice

[P Brooks]

It makes no sense to keep marijuana growing a felony, when assault, battery, and petty theft are all misdemeanors.

Understatement of the week.

[sloopyinca]

It makes no sense to keep marijuana growing a felony, when assault, battery, and petty theft are all misdemeanors for any reason whatsoever.

FIFY

[Doktor Kapitalism]

Don't know which I like better.

[BigT]

It makes no sense to keep marijuana growing illegal.

FTFY

[GSL]

Is it just me, or does it seem increasingly like the major opposition to MJ legalization is emerging as the DEA, cops, and prison guards, and not so much scared politicians and prohibitionists?

It's still both. On one hand, there was a massive raid in Fresno County yesterday on dispensaries suspected of selling MJ for a profit (yes, you read that correctly), and the DEA has been making cultivation for medical use basically impossible here. But we've also seen dispensaries being harassed by the IRS, which sounds more like the politicians at work, and San Jose's city council recently considered banning them.

[sloopyinca]

I don't know how I feel about the blogwhoring, but your blog is quite well-written.

[nods approvingly]

[GSL]

Thanks. It's easier for me to use the blog's dashboard to find stories than it is to go through each story and link to the original reporting.

[Fist of Etiquette]

When will you people get the message that no one wants you to get high?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Also, they're pretty sure that prison population reduction order won't stand.

[sloopyinca]

Who's gonna strike it down? It came from the Supreme Court.

[Fist of Etiquette]

They know people.

[Some Call Me. . .Tim]

Proportionate response to rumors of Smurfs growing magic mushrooms.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa782wOrUVM

[sloopyinca]

That's an appropriate response to rumors of smurfs existing, let alone growing teh 'shroomz.

[Doktor Kapitalism]

WWIII looks even cooler in animation.

[P Brooks]

That dollar bill in your hand's value is based on your trust.

Keep clapping, you heartless bastards.

[WarrenT]

I can't clap, I'm using one of my hands to quantitatively ease myself.

[WotZoo]

Wow, OK man I never even thought about it liek that before.

http://www.hide-your-ip.at.tc