Life, Love, and Liberty

When you read about President Bush denouncing tyranny, you really have to acknowledge the hypocrisy. I mean; seriously.

Bush denounces tyrants from Cuba to Zimbabwe

James Bone for The Times in New York

US President George Bush urged UN members today to join in a “mission of liberation”, denouncing tyrants in Belarus, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Zimbabwe and announcing tightened US sanctions on the junta in Burma.

“This great institution must work for great purposes: to free people from tyranny and violence; to combat disease, illiteracy, and ignorance and poverty and despair,” Mr Bush told the 192-nation UN General Assembly. “Every member of the United Nations must join in this mission of liberation.”

Making only a glancing mention of the violence in Iraq, Mr Bush saluted “young democracies” in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan and called on the world to support the “moderate” leaders of the Palestinian Authority.

Avoiding any specific reference to al-Qaeda, the president warned that extremists were trying to impose a “hateful vision.”

“The followers of this violent ideology are a threat to civilised people everywhere,” he said. “All civilised nations must work together by sharing intelligence about their networks and choking off their finances and bringing to justice their operatives.

“In the long-run, the best way to defeat extremists is to defeat their dark ideology with a more hopeful vision – the vision of liberty.”

As protests grow in Burma, Mr Bush announced that expanded financial sanctions and an extended visa ban on members of the ruling junta and their families.

“Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma, where a military junta has imposed a 19-year reign of fear,” he said. “Basic freedoms of speech, assembly and worship are severely restricted. Ethnic minorities are persecuted. Froced child labour, human trafficking and rape are common. The regime is holding more than 1,000 political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi.”

“The military junta remains unyielding, yet the people’s desire for freedom remains unmistakable,” he said.

He excoriated the “brutal regimes” in Belarus, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Zimbabwe and said “the long rule of a cruel dictator is nearing its end” in Cuba.

“The Cuban people are ready for their freedom,” he said. “As that nation enters a period of transition, the UN must insist on free speech, free assembly and ultimately free and competitive elections.”

Although he was speaking just hours before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mr Bush made no specific mention of Teheran’s suspected nuclear weapons programme.

He also call for the reform of the UN Human Rights Council, which was only created this year after a revamp that failed to earn Washington’s support.

“With commitment and courage of this chamber, a world where people are free to speak, assembly and worship as they wish, a world where children in every nation grow up healthy, get a decent education and look to the future with hope,” he said.

And I read the above on the day that the Drug Enforcement Administration conducts another Gestapo raid on medical marijuana collectives in California.

Dear Friends of MPP:

Right now, the DEA is currently raiding the River City Patient Center in Sacramento, California — the longest established medical marijuana dispensary in the city. Protesters have gathered outside the building in support of the collective.

And yesterday, the DEA began threatening landlords in the Santa Barbara area who lease space to medical marijuana dispensaries — activity that’s legal under California state law — with federal prison time and forfeiture of their properties. Several dispensaries closed right away.

This follows a similar move in Los Angeles in July — a maneuver that was condemned in a Los Angeles Times editorial as “a deplorable new bullying tactic.”

No matter what state you live in, will you please take a few minutes to write all three of your members of Congress to protest this federal interference in state law? MPP’s action center is easy to use: You can send one of our pre-drafted letters, or you can personalize the letter.

This is just the latest in the campaign of terror the DEA is waging on the sick. In June and July, the DEA conducted extensive medical marijuana raids in several California counties and in Oregon, including raids on at least 10 Los Angeles clinics in late July. Most were aimed at medical marijuana dispensaries operating legally under state and local laws, and in several cases the DEA detained and terrorized individual patients.

If this outrages you like it does me, would you help MPP hire a new grassroots organizer in California, as well as to retain a lobbyist to help push legislation in Sacramento to protect these dispensaries? If enough supporters on this e-mail list donate today, MPP will be able to fully pay for both positions.

These reprehensible DEA attacks — which run counter to state law, as well as the 78% of the American people who support “making marijuana legally available for doctors to prescribe in order to reduce pain and suffering” — are preventing effective local regulation of medical marijuana: Cities and counties in California are passing ordinances to ensure that medical marijuana dispensaries follow the law and serve patients properly. But by treating all who provide medical marijuana to the sick as common drug dealers, the DEA has become the single largest obstacle to effective regulation of these establishments.

A major Los Angeles raid actually occurred at the exact moment that members of the city council were holding a press conference to discuss an ordinance to regulate medical marijuana providers.

Local officials and major newspapers are outraged by the DEA’s actions. After the July raids in Los Angeles, L.A. City Councilman Dennis Zine — a Republican and former police officer with the L.A. Police Department — said, “I am greatly disturbed that the Drug Enforcement Administration would initiate an enforcement action against medical marijuana facilities in the City of Los Angeles during a news conference regarding City Council support of an Interim Control Ordinance to regulate all facilities within the City. This action by the DEA is
contrary to the vote of Californians who overwhelmingly voted to support medicinal marijuana use by those facing serious and life threatening illnesses. The DEA needs to focus their attention and enforcement action on the illegal drug dealers who are terrorizing communities in Los Angeles.”

After a series of DEA medical marijuana raids in San Francisco, the city’s health director, Dr. Mitchell Katz, wrote to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, “These actions have resulted in 4,000 persons with chronic illness left without access to critical treatment upon which they rely. Certainly in this post-September 11 environment, it seems that a DEA priority punishing organizations for distributing cannabis for medical purposes to chronically ill individuals is misplaced.”

Would you help us fight back against the DEA’s deplorable attacks on sick patients? Please write your three members of Congress now, and then consider making a donation to MPP today.

Sincerely,

Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
Washington, D.C.

Could politics get anymore ridiculous? Probably.

Hat tip to the Times Online UK via Antiwar.com, and the Marijuana Policy Project on MySpace.

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