Temperance Revival

His hideous replica.

Scrutinize the little monster

Disappeared through the door

His hideous replica

The Fall
Songwriter: Mark E Smith
Impression of J. Temperance lyrics © BMG Rights Management US, LLC

Every now and then we allow ourself a popular culture reference and your editor has been waiting for a number of years to refer our readers to the writings of the late great Mark E Smith of cult UK band , The Fall.

Now is as good a time as any, as Attorney Generals from around the US ,with the past on their minds gather for their annual howdy doody temperance meeting.

WV News reports on the various scant arguments being bandied around. Yes we agree with the environmental issues in CA but we presume Mourad Gabriel failed to make the connection between the black ,unregulated market and how regulation could actually contribute to decreasing environmental degradation.  Then we have the police are so busy argument , or the criminals are still in charge argument. You’ve read it all before and we’re sure you’ll read it all again.

There’s a lot that’s wrong with regulated cannabis, don’t start us on that conversation

But returning to a black market isn’t going to help anyone

 

WV News Report……

CHARLESTON — A group of law enforcement officials and experts from across the country spoke at a marijuana symposium Wednesday about what West Virginia can learn from Colorado’s legalization of the hallucinogenic plant.

The symposium, which was sponsored by U.S. Attorney Mike Stuart and others, featured mostly speakers who were critical of Colorado’s laws and their effects.

One speaker, Mourad Gabriel, discussed the effect of marijuana crops on wildlife in California, another state where the plant is legal.

As co-director of the Integral Ecology Research Center, Gabriel said he has studied native California species and found that one type of small mammal started dying out.

Eventually, Gabriel and his group linked the deaths to rat poison that was used on marijuana crops. They also discovered other illegal substances that can be used to keep animals and vermin out of the crops. These substances, Gabriel said, are very dangerous to humans and can find their way into ground water and even animals that people hunt and later eat.

“We’re a state that loves our outdoors,” Stuart said. “You don’t get any more beautiful state than West Virginia. This is important to all of us. I think it’s surprising to people, and I just didn’t know.”

Stuart has been a vocal opponent to legalizing marijuana, and has said that his office is preparing to aggressively enforce federal marijuana laws.

Robert Troyer, a former U.S. attorney in Colorado, said that Colorado’s experience with legalizing marijuana was a “grand experiment.” He said the results since its legalization should be a warning to other states that want to follow its path.

Troyer was asked how marijuana legalization affected businesses. Although he did not work directly with businesses in his previous job, he said he did hear that delivery companies and businesses that rely on truck drivers have a hard time navigating the legal waters of an employee who might be legally permitted to use medical marijuana.

Another official from Colorado, Wendy Roewer, said local law enforcement officials are overwhelmed by enforcing the state’s marijuana laws. Roewer is the field intelligence manager for the Denver division of the Drug Enforcement Administration. She said international drug trade organizations use Colorado’s lax marijuana laws to smuggle the drug to other states.

“Since marijuana was full-on legalized recreationally in 2012, we’ve seen a precipitous increase in trafficking organizations setting up large-scale marijuana production operations in Colorado,” Roewer said. “The bottom line is that Colorado’s marijuana laws are so permissive, and marijuana production is so profitable, many criminal organizations currently control networks consisting of hundreds of grow sites capable of producing marijuana and marijuana products.”

West Virginia legalized medical marijuana in 2017, but medical marijuana remains in limbo because state Treasurer John Perdue won’t be able to support the program because of disparities between state and federal laws.

He suggested that state lawmakers could work in a loophole to allow for the payments to be processed, but no fix to the medical marijuana bill has been acted upon by the Legislature yet.

Stuart, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia, co-sponsored the invitation-only event, along with two other programs run through the federal Department of Justice whose purpose is to suppress the use of drugs like marijuana. State and federal officials from across the country, along with a handful of media outlets, attended.

https://www.wvnews.com/news/wvnews/charleston-wv-symposium-speakers-pot-legalization-has-had-negative-effects/article_0efbe9b2-7a00-5009-95ee-fb13926

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