Team Vendetta would like to thank Dave Hodges for the use of his domain.  Dave is an activist in the legalization movement and the author of The Book of Morepot,  a Testament of Jamaican Chronic. Check him out at http://www.facebook.com/davehemp.

The legalization of cannabis is about a lot more than meets the eye. The issues at stake here encompass personal freedom, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The 1st amendment states that we are not only free in our homes but in our persons (that is, our bodies and what we choose to put in them and how.) If we are indeed free in our persons, then every single person who has been incarcerated for the simple act of using this herb has been falsely arrested and imprisoned. Yes, current law states they have committed an infraction, but common sense alone states that they have not actually done anything wrong. That means the police officers who arrest these people are guilty of false arrest. It also means that every person who has been fined for marijuana use has been the victim of both theft and extortion.

The police unions who lobby so heavily on behalf of criminalization and maintaining the status quo are not doing so out of any concern for the people they claim to serve and protect. They are not acting out of benevolence or because they have any love for the society they live in. The war on drugs puts money in their pockets. Can you imagine how many fewer arrests and incarcerations there would be in the United States if cannabis were legalized and regulated? It’s not a far fetched assumption that many law enforcement officials would lose their jobs. The need for prison space would drop dramatically. The federal government would not be dumping nearly as much money into local and state law enforcement narcotics divisions.

The war on drugs is no such thing. It is a war on drug users. Our opponents claim that marijuana leads to the destruction of families. Where is their concern for the families of men and women who are languishing in jail cells for doing nothing more than using an herb that anyone can easily grow?

Everyone must stand and fight this now. We have gone on too long like this and it’s only getting worse. Instead of building more schools, we are closing schools and building prisons. Instead of preventing actual violent crimes, our police are paid to ruin the lives of peaceful people for breaking laws that make no sense on their face.

420. It isn’t just a number. It is a symbol and a mantra that everyone who believes in personal freedom must take up.

John Lovell is a lobbyist who makes a lot of money from making sure you can’t smoke a joint. That’s his job. He’s a lobbyist for the police unions in Sacramento, and he is a driving force behind grabbing Federal dollars to shut down the California marijuana industry. I’ll get to the evidence on this important story in a bit, but first, some context. At some point in the distant past, the war on drugs might have been popular. But not anymore — the polling is clear, but beyond that, the last three Presidents have used illegal drugs. So why do we still put hundreds of thousands of people in steel cages for pot-related offenses? Well, there are many reasons, but one of them is, of course, money in politics. Corruption. Whatever you want to call it, it’s why you can’t smoke a joint without committing a crime, though of course you can ingest any number of pills or drinks completely within the law. Some of the groups who want to keep the drug illegal are police unions that want more members to pay more dues. One of the primary sources for cash for more policing activities are Federal grants for penalizing illegal drug use, which help pay for overtime, additional police officers, and equipment for the force. That’s what Lovell does, he gets those grants. He also fights against democratic mechanisms to legalize drugs. In 2010, California considered Prop 19, a measure to legalize marijuana and tax it as alcohol. The proposition gained more votes than Meg Whitman, the former eBay executive and Republican gubernatorial nominee that year, but failed to pass. Opponents of the initiative ran ads, organized rallies, and spread conspiracy theories about billionaire George Soros to confuse voters. Lovell managed the opposition campaign against Prop 19. He told Time Magazine that he was pushing against the initiative because, “the last thing we need is yet another mind-altering substance to be legalized.” But Republic Report reviewed lobbying contracts during the Prop 19 fight, and found that Lovell’s firm was paid over $386,350 from a wide array of police unions, including the California Police Chiefs Association. While Lovell may contend that he sincerely opposes the idea of marijuana legalization, he has constructed an entire business model predicated on pot prohibition. Shortly after President Obama’s stimulus program passed, Lovell went to work channeling the taxpayer money for California into drug war programs. According to documents Republic Report obtained from the Police Chiefs Association, Lovell helped local departments apply for drug war money from the Federal government.
There is big money in marijuana prohibition. Lovell represented a police union in a bid to steer some $2.2 million dollars into a “Marijuana Suppression Program.” In 2009 and 2010, California police unions sought a $7,537,389 chunk of Federal money for police to conduct a “Campaign Against Marijuana Planting” program. The anti-marijuana money went directly into the paychecks of many officers. For example, police departments in Shasta, Siskiyou, and Tehama Counties formed a “North California Eradication Team” to receive $550,000 in grants that helped pay for overtime, a new officer, and flight operations: The total amount awarded was $550,000, to be split between Shasta, Siskiyou and Tehama counties, which make up the Northern California Marijuana Eradication Team (NorCal-MET). Broken down in the agenda worksheet, the sheriff’s office is expecting to spend $20,000 on flight operations, $94,895 for the full-time deputy’s salary and benefits, $16,788 for the administration assistant salary and benefits and $29,983 to cover up to 666.29 hours of overtime. The Federal anti-marijuana honeypot might have dried up if Prop 19 had passed. Legalizing marijuana would have generated billions in tax revenue for the state of California, while also reducing victimless crime prosecutions. But for lobbyists like Lovell, legalization was a direct assault on hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential fees for helping to solicit taxpayer money for his clients. Police unions also contributed about $100,500 to a campaign account used to coordinate opposition to Prop 19. Of the $386,350 in fees paid by police unions to Lovell through 2009 and 2010, status update reports reviewed by Republic Report reveal that Lovell worked on a number of issues, from advocacy against Prop 19 to channeling grants and monitoring legislation. Of course, police unions aren’t the only interest group with a stake in maintaining broken drug laws. The beer industry, alcohol corporations, and prison guard unions also contributed money to help Lovell stop Prop 19. Howard Wooldridge, a retired police officer who now helps push for legalization as a citizen advocate, told Republic Report that drug company lobbyists also fight to keep marijuana illegal because they view pot as a low-cost form of competition.