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Senate Throws Softball Questions 
Posted by CN Staff on November 19, 2010 at 18:49:53 PT
By Phillip S. Smith
Source: AlterNet
Washington, D.C. -- Michele Leonhart's nomination to be Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) administrator appeared to be on track for an easy confirmation after a Wednesday hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee.The nomination is opposed by the drug reform, medical marijuana, and hemp movements, but insiders say it is all but a done deal.While reformers had hoped one or more senators would ask Leonhart "tough questions" about her tenure as acting DEA administrator, that didn't happen. 
Sens. Herb Kohl (D-WI) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) pressed Leonhart about easing access to pain medications for senior citizens in nursing homes, but that was about the extent of the prodding.Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), expressing concern about all that legalization talk in the air, gave Leonhart the opportunity to assure him that she and the DEA stood steadfast. She obliged him."I have seen what marijuana use has done to young people," Leonhart said. "I've seen the addiction, the family breakup. I've seen the bad. I'm extremely concerned about the legalization of any drugs," she avowed. "We already have problems with prescription drugs, which are legal, so it's of concern."Legalizers are singing a seductive siren song, Leonhart warned. "The danger of these legalization efforts, they say we could just end the problem of drugs if we just make it legal," she explained. "But any country that has tried that -- the Netherlands, Alaska -- it has not worked, it is failed public policy."Leonhart was nominated by President Bush to be administrator at DEA after replacing Karen Tandy in 2007 and has been acting administrator ever since. The Obama administration renominated her as administrator in February, but the nomination languished as the committee dealt with other business, most notably addressing a backlog of judicial nominations and preparing for confirmation hearings for the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court.Medical marijuana and drug reform advocacy groups have opposed Leonhart's nomination on a variety of grounds. As Special Agent in Charge of the DEA's Los Angeles office from 1998 to 2004 and DEA deputy administrator from 2003 to 2007, she presided over hundreds of raids on medical marijuana patients and providers. As acting administrator, she ran DEA while California medical marijuana raids continued unabated until the October 2009 Justice Department memorandum to quit persecuting patients and providers "whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws."Even since then, while DEA medical marijuana raids have diminished, they have not stopped. According to the medical marijuana support group Americans for Safe Access (ASA), since the memo went out, the DEA under Leonhart has engaged in more than 30 raids of medical marijuana providers in states where it is legal."As the deputy director, Ms. Leonhart supervised an unprecedented level of paramilitary-style enforcement raids designed to undermine safe access and the implementation of state medical marijuana programs," ASA said in an alert to its members.Leonhart is also drawing fire from advocates for overturning a DEA administrative law judge's decision to issue a license to UMass-Amherst Professor Lyle Craker to grow marijuana for FDA-approved research. That decision left intact the federal government's monopoly on the cultivation of marijuana for research purposes. It is grown only at the University of Mississippi.And she is being opposed as well for her DEA's recalcitrance when it comes to industrial hemp. In a July letter to the committee, the industry group Vote Hemp said it opposed Leonhart's nomination because under her tenure DEA continues to block hemp production in the US, has failed for more than three years to respond to several applications from North Dakota-licensed farmers to grow hemp, and continues to maintain the fiction that hemp is marijuana."Michele Leonhart, the nominee for administrator and a lifetime DEA bureaucrat, severely lacks the vision to change policy on hemp farming for the better," the group said. "Vote Hemp strongly opposes the nomination of Michele Leonhart to be Administrator of the DEA."There is another reason to question her suitability to run DEA -- her dealings with and defense of one-time DEA "supersnitch" Andrew Chambers. Chambers earned an astounding $2.2 million for his work as a DEA informant between 1984 and 2000. The problem was that he was caught perjuring himself repeatedly. The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals called him a liar in 1993, and the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals echoed that verdict two years later.But instead of terminating its relationship with Chambers, the DEA protected him, failing to notify prosecutors and defense attorneys about his record. At one point, DEA and the Justice Department for 17 months stalled a public defender seeking to examine the results of DEA's background check on Chambers. Even after the agency knew its snitch was rotten, it refused to stop using Chambers, and it took the intervention of then Attorney General Janet Reno to force the agency to quit using him.Michele Leonhart defended Chambers. When asked if, given his credibility problems, the agency should quit using him, she said, "That would be a sad day for DEA, and a sad day for anybody in the law enforcement world... He's one in a million. In my career, I'll probably never come across another Andrew."Another Leonhart statement on Chambers is even more shocking, as much for what it says about Leonhart as for what Leonhart says about Chambers. "The only criticism (of Chambers) I've ever heard is what defense attorneys will characterize as perjury or a lie on the stand," she said, adding that once prosecutors check him out, they will agree with his DEA admirers that he is "an outstanding testifier."And then there's her connection to the "House of Death" scandal. The "House of Death" in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, was a house used by the Juárez drug cartel to murder people. Dozens of bodies were eventually recovered when the police raided it. The case revolves around a US Immigration and Customs (ICE) and DEA informant in Mexico, code-named "Lalo," who witnessed (and perhaps took part in) a murder in the House of Death during August 2003. In a lawsuit, whistleblower and former DEA Special Agent Sanalio Gonzalez charges that Leonhart and other officials fired him for speaking out about the murders and then helped cover the scandal up.A number of reform groups have organized Internet and phone call-in campaigns in a bid to derail the nomination. Students for Sensible Drug Policy, NORML, California NORML, and Firedoglake have all sounded the alarm. So has the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP).Editor's Note: The interviews below were conducted before Wednesday's hearing."We are asking our supporters and followers to contact their representatives if they are serving on the committee and tell them to ask her some tough questions about her previous actions," said MPP communications director Mike Meno. "She presided over hundreds of DEA raids on legal medical marijuana providers during Bush admin, and played a crucial role in rejecting applications to do FDA-level research on marijuana."ASA provided a list of questions for the committee to ask Leonhart, including how raiding medical marijuana providers was an efficient use of DEA resources, how the DEA might work with medical marijuana states, why the DEA didn't just hand over cases of "clear and unambiguous" violations of state medical marijuana laws to state authorities, and when the DEA might get around to deciding the status of a 2002 petition to reschedule marijuana."I was hoping that this nomination was going to die a slow death but it appears as if they are going forward with it," said Tom Murphy, outreach coordinator for Vote Hemp. "We sent a letter in opposition, as I know a number of other organizations have. We've also got a pair of action alerts up on our web site. We've been working it against this since June, and we have a long list of reasons to oppose her nomination."But it doesn’t appear that the senators on the Judiciary Committee are paying much heed to the stop Leonhart campaign. Despite the protests, her nomination is likely to sale through the committee tomorrow and be quickly approved by the Senate."Unfortunately, I don't think there's any chance of stopping her nomination," said Murphy. "She was nominated by Bush, and the committee sat on it, and renominated by Obama and they sat it on. Now we're a lame duck session, and they’re moving it. That tells me they have the votes to get it through and it's a done deal.""The prospects aren't good. Every office we've talked to has said they weren't going to go against an Obama nominee," said Bill Piper, national affairs director for the Drug Policy Alliance, which also opposed the nomination. "But if we can get some senators to put pressure on her publicly or privately, maybe she will quit being such as obstacle when it comes to things like Amherst and the raids. We're taking sort of a harm reduction approach, like when Asa Hutchinson was grilled during his hearing and came out in support of reducing the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity."Getting Michele Leonhart to back off a little on the medical marijuana raids would be a welcome consolation, but don't hold your breath. Progressive drug policy stances are not the traditional province of the DEA, and it looks like nothing is going to change there for the foreseeable future.Read more of Phillip S. Smith's work at the Drug War Chronicle.Source: AlterNet (US)Author:  Phillip S. SmithPublished: November 19, 2010 Copyright: 2010 Independent Media InstituteContact: letters alternet.org Website: http://www.alternet.org/URL: http://www.alternet.org/drugs/148935/CannabisNews -- Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml
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Comment #10 posted by museman on November 22, 2010 at 08:14:53 PT
rchandar
Well, thanx for the cheer, but I don't think addressing the DEA alone is going to restore my confidence, that's been missing for a long, long time. (though I would celebrate that achievement!)China may own America now, but I don't believe in debt, its a incredibly powerful illusion that cows the SQAKs into subjection and keeps the financiers afloat. When our government begins to address that, confidence might be back in my political vocabulary.LEGALIZE FREEDOM
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Comment #9 posted by rchandar on November 21, 2010 at 12:58:44 PT:
museman
On a good note, it looks like Kamala Harris will win the election for CA DA. She's for MMJ, so maybe our largest state can avoid the windfall of new drug cases.Alas, the melancholy smell of constipation. How we've become Chinese in our manner of thinking. In all seriousness, I don't think DEA can override the Attorney General's decision, those cases will be thrown out of court. But the mathematics is simple--get rid of the DEA, enjoy the fruits of liberal public policy and rebuild public confidence in our government.--rchandar
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Comment #8 posted by museman on November 20, 2010 at 09:37:34 PT
this is what happens
when truth is compromised for the sake of comfort. The willingness, and will to make the sacrifices necessary to actually regain, protect, and ensure our liberty are so easily bought and paid for by the toys, entertainment, and 'perceived comfort' of the Status Quo.The priorities of our government are class specific, and apparently have been since the beginning. Our 'working class' forefathers were duped by the wealthy merchants and aristocracy into fighting that war for them. They promised liberty and gave us capitalism -which they already had maximum control over. And it was pretty easy to do when the only form of 'common' communication was word of mouth, or writing (and many were illiterate).Our society is stratified, just like any other that ever existed, a pyramid structure of power and wealth, that only truly serves the capstone. The arguments that consistently try to uphold this situation as anything other than this are SQAKs, and sympathizers to the true terrorists -The US Government, and by implied consent, the american people who continue to believe that their 'vote' is worth more than a good laugh behind the closed doors of the actual legislation that is planned and executed.Its a good and elaborate subterfuge, I agree, enough to get even the wisest of us believing it 'just one more time' and thinking that that few minutes of ballot casting actually directs the government that falsely claims to 'represent' us.When Vietnam was nearly done, and we were in the streets, it was not the signs and protests that made the movement, it was the movement itself. When Nixon cut and ran, the rulers stepped in and offered many distractions and misdirections -one of which was the ramping up prohibition by declaring the WOD- which included the apparently easy task of drugging our cultural heroes and signing them up with promises of a climb on the pyramid. The music died slowly in the mainstream, but by the time generation x came along it had been successfully established as 'background music.'Those who attempted to remain on focus and on track to liberty and justice, if not funneled into regulated and controlled institutions like 'greenpeace' or into radical - but thoroughly infiltrated organizations like 'earth first' were left to form their own cells of continued resistance, many of which were compromised or contaminated with either bad drugs; alcohol, meth, heroin, and cocaine, or criminally labelled through cannabis use. The 'yuppie' compromisers were schooled through TV media to mock, deride, ridicule, -and most importantly reject- all the prime reasons why the 'movement' happened in the first place.Fading in the mist of yesterday, the tenets of "Peace, Love, and Understanding" became replaced by the 'get yours if you can' philosophy of the 'american dream.'All the publicized hoopla about 'political accomplishment' has never been anything but a smoke screen and a media generated sleight-of-hand intended to fool the workers of america, and even those who managed some parts of self-sufficiency into believing their tale of a handsomely clothed emperor.Some people like to claim that Reagan somehow ended the cold war- just because he made a well crafted hollywood speech at the Wall. (more laughter behind closed doors)The 'liberals' believed Clinton would bring 'change.' I remember Neil Young getting up in a town meeting and asking him when the 'change they voted for was going to get here.'I have nothing to say about the bushes except that such weeds should be burned regularly to prevent major crop contamination.The political system, its real and perceived efficacy, and the relationship and 'power' of the 'vote' is well summed up in the old bathroom graffiti;"Here I sit, broken hearted, tried to shit, but only farted."LEGALIZE FREEDOM
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on November 20, 2010 at 08:06:59 PT
Something Funny
Someone sent me this video and I thought others might want to see it. Laughter is good medicine.Bruce Springsteen & Jimmy Fallon "Whip My Hair"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhFh-JqQuMg
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on November 20, 2010 at 07:08:08 PT
Just a Note
I hope everyone is planning a nice Thanksgiving Day. The news is so darn slow but it is giving me time to do other things. As far as this DEA nomination I don't know what to think. The drug war is alive and well and probably will be ramped up with Republicans controlling the House. They are such angry, hateful people. I refuse to pay attention to angry politicians. They don't live in my world. 
Happy Thanksgiving
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Comment #5 posted by runruff on November 20, 2010 at 05:31:42 PT
Sentenced for normal human behaviour?
Drug addiction and casual use have been the subject of much study these past few decades. Everyone agrees that there is a consistent 25% of society who will use drugs regularly and another 50% who use on occasion.These numbers cut through social and economic lines. Drug use is a human condition which is why it is so important to the drug companies to control the sale of drugs on the black market as well as the phony FDA approve "safe" market.The problem is when people are willing to imprison and ruin other peoples lives for something they do themselves.Ask anyone one who knows a DEA agent or some former agents willing to write about their experiences in the Agency.Michele Leonhart is being confirmed by the Senate as DEA chief. This is the hen watching the fox house. There are likely not one high ranking DEA official who is not getting crazy rich off of train loads of black market cash. The corruption in the trillion dollar world drug trade make Al Capone look like a Ben Quail. 
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Comment #4 posted by runruff on November 20, 2010 at 00:18:44 PT
Come on...
...this is akin to nominating Stalin as a human rights director!I thinking of another book say, "Why I Hate My government"!
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Comment #3 posted by Paint with light on November 19, 2010 at 21:19:39 PT
wrong change
I have long been a supporter of Obama but this is obviously a wrong move.I am still holding out hope "he" will change.Legal like alcohol.
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Comment #2 posted by b4daylight on November 19, 2010 at 19:48:05 PT:
fuhhh
 " I'm extremely concerned about the legalization of any drugs," But don't do anything to make those legal drugs illegal. 
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Comment #1 posted by HempWorld on November 19, 2010 at 18:55:21 PT
"But any country that has tried that -- the Nether
lands, Alaska -- it has not worked, it is failed public policy."Oh really? You do not seem to know your facts or you are untruthful, either way, you are thus not fit to be nominated.
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