DEA Adopts Dunking Stool – Cannabis

AUTHORED BY: JORDAN ZOOT

President Donald Trump, showing his outrage over Bob Woodward’s explosive new book, is ordering a real witch hunt in the West Wing and throughout his administration, asking loyal aides to help determine who cooperated with the book.As the President publicly fumes on Twitter, he’s privately on a mission to determine who did — and didn’t — talk to Woodward, CNN has learned.

DEA Adopts Dunking Stool – Cannabis

The interrogation methods from the Salem Witch trials may be instructive, if only in a figurative sense [it might worth reading John Yoo’s memo around which the Bush Administration justified the use of torture which you can access here].

When citizens were being accused, there were only two directions for them to take; they could plead guilty or innocent. The majority of the people under questioning went with pleading guilty because that usually only ended with being jailed. If they pleaded innocent, then the complications began to emerge.

Some of the more common methods of interrogation or torture were things such as the ducking stool. With a set-up similar to a teeter-totter, the accused was on one end which would hang above the local pond, whereas the other end was occupied by the accusers. They would dunk their victim under the water. If they floated, they were a witch using magic to stay afloat. If they drowned, they were innocent.

The true torture began after one was proven to be a witch. They used several different types of penalties, but they were very likely to end with death. One of the most common sentences for a witch would be hanged at Gallows Hill. Although the Salem Witch Trials are well-known for having their victims being burned at the stake, that was actually less common than being hanged. Another rather odd punishment was called the witch’s cradle. The victim was put into a sack and tied upside down from a tree, where the accusers would proceed to swing them back and forth. This caused hallucinations in some cases, but they used whatever they said to add some zest to their story.

Before you decide that we have lost our collective minds, consider the “tweets” that POTUS posted over the weekend with respect to the actions of his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions with respect to the DOJ indictment of two sitting GOP members of Congress.

“Two long-running, Obama era investigations of two very popular Republican Congressman were brought to a well-publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department,” Trump tweeted on Monday. “Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff.”

The tweets sparked immediate turmoil because they suggested that Trump would prefer the Justice Department put off acting on alleged crimes in the name of political expediency and election wins. For the DOJ to do so would raise serious ethical questions.

DEA Adopts Dunking Stool – Cannabis

Trump is already under scrutiny for potential obstruction of justice in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, and his Monday tweets probably won’t help the impression that the president sees the Department of Justice as a political tool instead of an apolitical entity. Both Democrats and Republicans expressed alarm at Trump’s tweet, but whether there will be any consequences is unclear.

The political climate has most of us hopeful that the Federal government will either enact legislation which will provide a measure of protection for the cannabis industry in states that have a legal industry, or the DEA will finally act to remove cannabis from Schedule I. However, there is a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the process, and the status of the Attorney General. One absolutely clear takeaway is that encouraging everyone to get out and vote in the midterm elections to give the Democrats control of Congress is clear.  

We don’t view being appropriately careful is by any means paranoid…what is quite clear is that POTUS is not only mentally defective and unfit for office…we must, unfortunately, add, that for the immediate future, assuming that Federal law enforcement will act rationally is perhaps wishful thinking.

Se discussion of Repeal of the Cole Memorandum for additional background.