A Bloated Vestige of the Past, the DEA Struggles for Relevancy

-->

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) website, when the agency was established in 1973, it had 1,470 special agents and a budget of less than $75 million. Today it boasts over 5,000 special agents (which doesn’t include what must be tens of thousands of support staff) and a budget of $2.03 billion. That’s a sizable organization and one with a long reach into the various branches of government and the military.

Yet today there is an article in the Huffington Post in which the author seems befuddled by the recent efforts of the DEA to place the rather benign herbal supplement Kratom into Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act along with heroin, cocaine and crack. The author correctly notes the softening trend nationwide toward marijuana prohibition, and wonders why the DEA would be taking such a Draconian stance against an herb that has little potential for abuse and that many people use for help with various medical ailments.

The obvious answer to the Kratom conundrum is found in the first paragraph. The DEA has become a huge, bloated bureaucracy over the past 43 years that is now fighting for its survival. The change in attitude toward marijuana and drug prohibition in general has the agency running scared, and it is now grasping at straws to try and retain its relevance. We saw this just recently when it refused to take marijuana off the Schedule 1 list despite the mountains of data and research attesting to the drug’s relative safety and proven medical benefits.

The question is, what do you do with a large government agency that history has passed by and is now doing more harm than good (if it ever did do any good)? In Washington, you plug your ears and sing “Na, na, na” for as long as you’re able so that you can hopefully hand-off your expensive White Elephant to the next administration. Not long ago, Obama appointed a new head of the DEA who is only a slightly less maniacal drug warrior than his predecessor, indicating that this president isn’t going to walk into the political minefield associated with downsizing the Pentagon of the drug war.

Not surprisingly, there has been no indication from either Trump or Clinton that their administrations will take a more reasoned approach to drug prohibition than Obama. So the prognosis is that our government will spend more billions of tax dollars and keep increasing the prison population for base political reasons. And people are upset that an athlete won’t stand during the pledge of allegiance.

It's Tuesday, let's talk pot

Here’s a quick rundown on some recent marijuana news and developments:

Twenty-one states have legalized marijuana for medical use and Colorado and Washington allow recreational use. A dozen other states are currently considering legalizing marijuana in some form.

The DEA continues to classify marijuana as s Schedule I drug, which puts it into the same category as heroin and meth as one of the “most dangerous substances with no currently accepted medical use”

A family of four in Washington State could face years in prison for growing marijuana for medical use (which is legal under state law). Each one of the defendants is a qualified medical marijuana patient under Washington state law, but the feds are charging them with felonies for manufacturing, possessing and distributing marijuana.

The government recently upped the amount of marijuana it grows at the University of Mississippi, claiming it now requires 1,433 pounds of pot a year for “research purposes.”

The head of DEA refuses to support drug sentencing reforms, putting her at odds with Attorney General Eric Holder and the Obama Administration. And she’s still in her position because…?

According to a recent article in the Washington Post, farmers in central Mexico have stopped planting pot. The ample availability of marijuana in the United States grown for medical and recreational has made pot farming in Mexico unprofitable. The price for a pound of Mexican marijuana has plummeted 75 percent from $100 per kilogram to less than $25. “I wish the Americans would stop with this legalization,” said one farmer.

A clear majority of Americans (58%) support legalizing marijuana.

Anti-pot propaganda at the Super Bowl

A silly and irrelevant anti-pot group calling itself Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) will be advertising at the Super Bowl with a message that claims pot makes people lazy and unmotivated and losers at life. “Marijuana kills your drive. Don’t lose the game of life,” it declares. The article from Huffington Post goes on to talk about how prevalent pot use is among professional athletes, and makes the point that it’s not the drug that destroys people’s lives but it’s the harsh legal penalties handed out to convicted non-violent users.

Someone might also want to remind the people behind SAM that a pot smoking, coke using young black man grew up to be President of the United States.

Obama: I’m high on hypocrisy

WASHINGTON — President Obama made a rare admission today during a briefing with reporters. The President said that being a hypocrite gave him a high that made cocaine seem as potent as “Cheeto dust.” Certain to raise the hackles of his supporters was this statement from Obama; “When I said in the 2008 campaign that I wasn’t going to go after medical marijuana, and then I turned around and did as President, I was baked like a motherfucker for weeks.”

When a reporter asked the President if he was high at the moment, Obama said, “No,” and then broke into hysterical laughter that lasted several minutes. After bringing himself under control, he told the assembled reporters how much respect he had for them, and once again burst into a violent laughing fit that forced the briefing to be cancelled.

Later in the day the President’s staff issued a statement saying the president had accidentally taken more than the prescribed dosage of cold medication before the meeting, ending with the familiar internet term, LOL.