The cost of pointless marijuana eradication efforts in California went up Wednesday when sheriff’s deputies shot and killed an unidentified man while hiking around in the woods looking for clandestine grow sites.
It is currently unknown whether this man was involved in marijuana cultivation, whether he was armed or fired at deputies, or even if there was any marijuana found nearby. Authorities are being typically tight-lipped about the entire incident.
What is known, beyond any doubt, is that eradication…
Law enforcement officials from all over the nation have descended upon San Diego, California this week to attend a conference for the National Marijuana Initiative (NMI) and the California Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP). We’ve been pointing out the futility of marijuana “eradication” campaigns like CAMP and NMI for years but don’t expect conference attendees to spend any time rethinking their failed prohibitionist policies while enjoying their stay in sunny San Diego.
The agenda for the…
As summer nears its end, marijuana “eradication” efforts are in high gear – and nowhere more so than in California, whose effort is called the “Campaign Against Marijuana Planting” – CAMP for short.
And as usual, the news is filled with stories of CAMP raids like this one, in which whopping numbers of marijuana plants are seized. These are habitually accompanied by breathless tales of criminal gangs despoiling forests and wilderness areas with their marijuana growing operations.
Missing from these…
It's already that time of the year again: CAMP season -- when law enforcement agents, donned in paramilitary gear, set out on the hunt for marijuana in the California wilderness. And prohibitionists are already touting massive plant seizures as a victory for their cause.
Over the past decade, CAMP (Campaign Against Marijuana Planting) seizures have increased by 2,000 percent but marijuana use and availability have remained relatively stable. And besides being futile, this "eradication" program actually…
I think drug czar John Walters has really lost it this time. Here he is, comically grim faced, chiding Hollywood for playing marijuana for laughs. Apparently, the nation's top drug policy expert believes adults not only can't be trusted to use marijuana responsibly, they also can't be trusted to view material that depicts marijuana users as anything but the deranged hedonists who so clearly haunt his nightmares.
By the way, I'll be on CNN's "Showbiz Tonight" at 11 p.m. Eastern this evening talking…
Drug czar John Walters is back in California this week, flying around the Central Valley in a Blackhawk helicopter surveying the progress of the latest marijuana "eradication" adventure.Bruce Mirken has already written about these gaudy publicity stunts, but since Walters and his ilk like to play soldier so much, let's see how their war on marijuana users is going elsewhere today ...
Federal prosecutors won their case against Morro Bay medical marijuana dispensary owner Charles Lynch. Having successfully…
Hank Sims of the North Coast Journal in Humbolt County, Calif., makes a good point about the true likely consequences of the gaudy, high profile federal raids on marijuana grows in Southern Humboldt County this week:
"We’ll know soon whether the operation has any connection to actual, bad crimes — violent crimes. Perhaps it does; more likely it does not. In which case, what will it accomplish? Well, the price of dope has fallen steadily over the last few years, and the regular Mom ‘n’ Pop marijuana…
