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Simplepowa
In Pursuit of Knowledge


Registered: 03/06/09
Posts: 4,310
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Is it time to get rid of the DEA?
#18869989 - 09/20/13 10:40 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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THIS year is the 40th anniversary of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Already plagued by scandals, the agency has recently been revealed to be collaborating with the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency to spy on unsuspecting Americans. More than 120 groups from across the political spectrum and around the globe have called on Congress to hold hearings on the DEA.
There is no doubt the agency should be reformed. It is also worth asking if it should continue to exist.
According to a Reuters investigation, the DEA has been gathering information from other agencies, as well as foreign governments, for years. The DEA has also been collecting its own arsenal of data; constructing a massive database with about 1 billion records.
This information is shared in secret. By hiding the origins of its data from defense attorneys, prosecutors and judges, the agency and its partners effectively are undermining the right of the people it targets to a fair trial.
According to The New York Times the DEA even has unlimited access to an AT&T database of all calls passing through its phones and switches. Under the Hemisphere Project, the U.S. government pays AT&T to place its employees inside the DEA, so that the DEA can use these experts to gain access to decades of detailed records of U.S. citizens’ phone calls.
Then there’s the DEA’s disregard for science. It obstructed a formal request to reschedule marijuana for 16 years. After being forced by the courts to make a decision, the agency declared marijuana to have no medical value, despite massive evidence to the contrary.
The agency’s own administrative law judge held two years of hearings and concluded marijuana in its natural form is “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man” and should be made available for medical use. Similar hearings on MDMA, aka ecstasy, concluded it has important medical uses, but the DEA again overruled its administrative law judge.
There is a robust supply of other DEA debacles. The Department of Justice’s “Fast and Furious” scandal exposed DEA agents who smuggled or laundered millions of dollars in profits for illegal drug organizations as part of an ongoing sting operation.
Many DEA agents are hardworking everyday people who put their lives on the line for the sake of what they believe to be the greater good. However, they are doing this in the face of systemic mismanagement and corruption that make even their best intentions futile.
Congress could make some helpful reforms, such as changing the incentive structure for DEA agents in order to discourage the worst offenders.
Recently, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said, “As the so-called war on drugs enters its fifth decade, we need to ask whether it, and the approaches that comprise it, have been truly effective. ...
“Today, a vicious cycle of poverty, criminality and incarceration traps too many Americans and weakens too many communities.”
This admission of failure by our nation’s highest-ranking law-enforcement official has fortified a platform to challenge the drug war. The DEA is a major force powering this destructive machine.
Three presidential administrations — Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton — have conducted reviews of whether it would be more efficient and better for public safety to basically do away with the DEA and merge it with the FBI, but Congress has never seriously explored the issue.
In fact, it’s remarkable how little federal oversight or scrutiny there has been. With an annual budget of more than $2 billion as well as significant discretionary powers, the DEA certainly merits a top-to-bottom review of its operations, expenditures and actions.
Once we finally get a good look under the hood, we will surely find a corroded and ineffective collection of parts that very likely need to go.
September 13, 2013 Bill Piper | The Seattle Times | Drugpolicy.org http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2021803860_billpiperopeddea12xml.html
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Carl Sagan - "Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people." --- Robert Pirsig - "When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion." --- Brian Cox - "[One] problem with today’s world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion AND have others listen to it. The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense."
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Konyap

Registered: 06/30/07
Posts: 33,945
Loc: Planet Piss
Last seen: 4 years, 2 months
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Re: Is it time to get rid of the DEA? [Re: Simplepowa]
#18870223 - 09/20/13 11:36 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Rockhound
The Rockweiler



Registered: 01/19/13
Posts: 664
Loc: hell creek anticline
Last seen: 8 years, 7 months
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Re: Is it time to get rid of the DEA? [Re: Konyap]
#18870333 - 09/21/13 12:11 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Give the dea total control over big pharma, and nothing else.
-------------------- Rocks speak to me, and tell me this: The Hell Creek formation is a gigantic slab of rocks that covers several western states. It contains an account of the dinosaurs' demise. In the late Cretaceous period, the first Cannabis species appear, and soon after, all the non-bird dinosaurs disappeared. Obviously, marihuana killed the dinosaurs. That giant meteor that smacked the yucatan peninsula right afterwards, coincidence.
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Nature Boy
Stranger than most



Registered: 07/09/07
Posts: 8,241
Loc: Samsara
Last seen: 2 months, 6 days
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Re: Is it time to get rid of the DEA? [Re: Rockhound]
#18870831 - 09/21/13 04:44 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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^^^^^^^^ Hell, yeah!

N.B.
-------------------- All submitted posts under this user name are works of pure fiction or outright lies. Any information, statement, or assertion contained therein should be considered pure unadulterated bullshit. Note well: Sorry, but I do not answer PM's unless you are a long-time trusted friend. If you have a question, ask it in the appropriate thread.
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jboredone
Money-The root of all evil....



Registered: 01/19/12
Posts: 4,783
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Re: Is it time to get rid of the DEA? [Re: Nature Boy]
#18870838 - 09/21/13 04:50 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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-------------------- Peace Pot Micro-Dot God Loves You High or Not!!! In order to grow old and wise, you must once have been young and dumb!

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Into The Woods
Quarantine King


Registered: 04/20/13
Posts: 10,864
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Re: Is it time to get rid of the DEA? [Re: Rockhound]
#18870855 - 09/21/13 05:06 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Rockhound said: Give the dea total control over big pharma, and nothing else.
LOL
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grimR
hippiousmaximous



Registered: 03/29/06
Posts: 1,235
Loc: North America
Last seen: 7 years, 10 months
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We need more articles to break them down
-------------------- - grimR -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- http://egolost.com "I am already given to the power that rules my fate. And I cling to nothing, so I will have nothing to defend. I have no thoughts, so I will see. I fear nothing, so I will remember myself." - Don Juan teachings
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MystiqueMushroom

Registered: 11/01/11
Posts: 4,737
Loc: PNW
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Re: Is it time to get rid of the DEA? [Re: grimR]
#18872723 - 09/21/13 03:42 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Down with the DEA
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runningfox2002
Engineer


Registered: 02/19/11
Posts: 1,132
Last seen: 1 year, 3 hours
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Here here!
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...to have some fun? Nobody knows Anything I say or talk about is strictly for my own search of knowledge and to satisfy my thirst of curiosity.
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dokunai
Cactus, Cannabis, Cubensis

Registered: 01/31/10
Posts: 1,878
Loc: Hyphal Heights, USA
Last seen: 7 years, 14 days
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This is why we are seeing an uptick in the aggression of DEA tactics to maintain prohibition, spread misinformation about drugs, and play to the unfounded fears of their political base. Prohibition creates artificial demand for the services of drug warriors, and they sure as hell aren't used to having to justify their jobs as useful. For as long as some of us can remember, drug users and especially drug dealers have been a group that it is OK to hate with uninhibited passion, a group of people for you and your neighbors to gang up against and scapegoat for problems ranging from disobedient kids to gang warfare.
It's becoming undeniable how much times have changed. We are not there yet, and not even close, but the facade of prohibition is starting to crumble. I just recently saw an article in the LA Times about Snoop Dog/Lion winning a pound of weed on a boxing match. Could you imagine this headline even being possible during Nancy Reagan's neo-temperance movement? Feds would be busting down Snoop's door, dragging him out, and making an example. Now it's a humor/culture piece that doesn't even make most of us pause.
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CounterCulturest
-Positive Mental Attitude-

Registered: 01/18/10
Posts: 3,662
Loc: Nesting on modems
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Re: Is it time to get rid of the DEA? [Re: dokunai]
#18873631 - 09/21/13 08:06 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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This is all news to us here at the shroomery. I thought they were making the world a safer place by getting rid of all the druggies
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Novartis
Dimitri
Registered: 08/27/11
Posts: 207
Loc: everywhere
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I can see the DEA being scratched off, but it only will prob give rise to an even more sinister department.
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jboredone
Money-The root of all evil....



Registered: 01/19/12
Posts: 4,783
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Re: Is it time to get rid of the DEA? [Re: Novartis]
#18874684 - 09/22/13 04:22 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Novartis said: I can see the DEA being scratched off, but it only will prob give rise to an even more sinister department.
-------------------- Peace Pot Micro-Dot God Loves You High or Not!!! In order to grow old and wise, you must once have been young and dumb!

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