Defund the DEA
Original version written for Perfect Plant Hemp Co. on October 30, 2020.
For over fifty years the DEA has been getting paid fat sums of money to rule over the world of substances. Roughly six months have passed since their most recent overstep, the Interim Final Rule (IFR.)
The IFR’s stated agenda is to regulate the Hemp industry. However, inspection, it’s no more than a thinly-veiled attempt at stifling this new economic resource. Why is the DEA so focused on continuing their failed war? This recent overstep is just one of many reasons to Defund the DEA.
The War on Drugs is rooted in petty racism, not in concern over the public. For proof, one has to look no further than the name “Marihuana.” Harry Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Bureau of Narcotics (predecessor to the DEA,) is to blame for perpetuating and strengthening the use of this name.
Prior to his time, Cannabis was mainly known as, well, just that. Marijuana is a completely unrelated term perpetuated as a derogatory word to convince the public that cannabis is something that primarily Mexican immigrants were using. The “j” was even added to make it look more like a Spanish word.
And of course there are the propaganda films, “Reefer Madness” being the most notable that was created by Anslinger and his department. These films pushed further the racist agenda of portraying cannabis as a divisive substance, capable of harming your nice, white daughters and sons.
Anslinger is quoted as saying “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.” Next time somebody tries to tell you that the prohibition of weed isn’t racially based, ask if they’ve ever heard that colloquial chestnut.
Today, we have the DEA, and they’re keeping the same plant prohibited in light of overwhelming evidence of it’s harmlessness. In addition to their racial foundations of criminalization, the DEA is also helping to keep it illegal in the interest of Big Pharma, Big Tobacco, and Industrial Agriculture — on top of the interests of the privatized prison industrial complex.
That final one is the real kicker, in my opinion.
It was only a few years ago that Whole Foods, the most expensive market in any given town, stopped using the slave labor they got courtesy of the thirteenth amendment and the prison system. Weed is a recruitment tool for prisons. It brings in people that genuinely have done nothing wrong, making them fantastic workers to hire out for pennies on the dollar.
Whole foods wasn’t alone in this. McDonald’s, Walmart, Verizon, Starbucks, Victoria’s Secret, and many others have exploited this extremely cheap labor, providing income streams to the prisons. Cannabis has helped these corporations to become stronger and more profitable through the prison industrial system.
The DEA’s never ending feud with cannabis has been going on in spite of overwhelming evidence of harmlessness and a two-thirds majority of the public (including 55% of republicans) in support of legalization.
About the Interim Final Rule:
The DEA released this rule months before the House was scheduled to vote on the now passed MORE act. The MORE (Marijuana Opportunities, Reinvestment, and Expungement) act would federally decriminalize cannabis, effectively giving the DEA no jurisdiction over it. Yet they felt some need to swoop in and tighten restrictions on hemp?
In the eyes of the DEA, the difference between hemp and marijuana is EXCLUSIVELY the amount of THC that is in the plant. As soon as it get’s over that limit, it’s an illegal plant. In this new rule, the arbitrary .3% total THC limit would have to be maintained in all hemp and hemp “derivative[s], extract[s], or product[s]” and not apply strictly to the dry weight of the plant.
It’s a miracle of modern science that cannabis breeders have been able to produce CBD rich genetics that stay under the .3% Delta9 THC threshold. This would make the vast majority of current CBD products prohibited. This new rule is not about safety, it’s about the control of this burgeoning industry.
Cannabis breeders have worked for years to create CBD genetics and stabilize them to a non intoxicating level, and now the DEA wants to impose even tighter restrictions. Even still, we are trying to get a handle on it. Recently, it was reported that Arizona farmers were having to destroy 40% of their crops for the fact that they tested over the .3% threshold. The truth of the matter is even THC at 1% is benign.
That’s why many in the industry, are calling for a 1% threshold so we can open up to greater varieties and applications of hemp. This would give much more leeway to the farmers, allow us to bring in new strains and increase the overall quality while still keeping the plant non-intoxicating.
There has been no public outcry over the THC levels in Hemp. There have been no harmful incidents with hemp, and there is no reason to impose these new rules.
By attempting to implement unnecessarily strict measures, the DEA has issued an attacking on a growing industry in the middle of an economic recession and pandemic even though the cannabis industry has been deemed an “essential business.”
The Bankruptcy of the War on Drugs
Imagine spending $3 Billion per year on a failure as complete as the DEA has been. Perhaps the most tragic irony of the War on Drugs has been the fact that our nation is in the worst drug epidemic ever, and it’s largely due to legal pharmaceuticals. The DEA was guarding the back door but the front door was left wide open.
Time and time again, it has been proven that addiction is a public health concern, not a legal one. We need the government to invest in programs to help people recover from the disease of addiction, not punish them with the law. Needle exchanges, suboxone and narcan clinics, and safe injection centers have all proven to be wildly more effective and less expensive to maintain.
If the government cared about drug abuse, it would look at the facts surrounding this public health crisis, rather than simply punishing and jailing people with the disease.
It is time to reimagine the DEA’s role in society, and redistribute their $3 Billion budget to productive institutions and programs that can promote health and safety, rather than waging a war against our own citizens. The DEA’s War on Drugs (and associated policies stemming from it) has been an abject failure, ruining the lives of countless people and families across the nation while illegal drug use continued to grow and spread. We need a new, more intelligent approach to cannabis.
We need a better approach for all substances.
This starts with rejecting the IFR. The DEA has never justified their funding by actually slowing the spread of drugs or addiction. We shouldn’t let them set new rules, when their record has been so poor.
More on The MORE Act:
Six months have passed since the IFR and it already feels as though it has largely been forgotten. With Biden in office, we have seen already that it’s possible he will try to sweep this under the rug if possible. It is imperative that this reaches a vote. Even if it’s voted down, it’s imperative that everyone goes on record with where they stand.
We could take the money we needlessly spend on the DEA and bring about an economic revolution. Everybody agrees that public education, the health care system, infrastructure, and about a million other time-sensitive and costly aspects of America are due for an upgrade.
Three Billion Dollars per year can be spent on those things as opposed to something two-thirds of American’s don’t even want prohibited.
