The Compassionate Coalition

Hello Compassionate Coalition and supporters,

Just wanted to post the next court date for Luke and the 8 other members who are facing charges in federal court.

Tuesday, Feburary 20, 9:00am @ the federal couthouse before Judge Ishii in Courtroom 8, 2500 Tulare St, Fresno, Ca for a status hearing

I also received this report from Luke Scarmazzo, please read below.

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Friends, Californians, Countrymen we approach a dawn of new times in the Medical Marijuana Movement. We are closer than ever before to realizing our goals. Yet presently we are on the receiving end of an all out assault on our right to access the medication our doctors have recommended for us, our rights as voters to chose and our god given right to live life. This is attack is be carried out by an agency of the federal government called the Drug Enforcement Administration or the DEA, as many of you well know.
Allow me give you a little background before I begin. On October 27, 1970, Congress passed the Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, which replaced more than 50 pieces of drug legislation. Title II of the Act, known as the Controlled Substances Act, gave Congress the authority to regulate interstate commerce for drugs. ( the interstate commerce clause is how the US supreme court gave the ok to the federal government (DEA) to raid and arrest medical marijuana patients for possession of marijuana even in states where it was medicinally legal in June of 2005) It also established five schedules that classify controlled substances according to their potential for abuse. Drugs were placed into categories according to how dangerous they were, how great their potential for abuse, and whether they have any legitimate medical value. This is the 37 year old law that the DEA still uses today to raid Medical Marijuana patients and their providers. You can see the falsity in this approach by the fact that marijuana, recognized by all serious medical authorities as the least dangerous of all the drugs, is Schedule 1, warranting the toughest penalties. Three years later the crazed Nixon administration created the DEA on July 1, 1973.
The history of drug enforcement in this country is among the most shameful and disgraceful chapters of American history. The laws were motivated by racism and the worst kind of ignorance and hysteria, and the enforcement power has always been used primarily against the most disadvantaged and helpless elements of our society.
In the state of California, we the voters passed prop.215 in 1996 and SB420 in 2003 allowing seriously ill people to legally obtain marijuana for medicinal purposes. The DEA has pushed our will to the side and chosen to take matters into their own hands. This rouge agency has now raided over 30 medical marijuana dispensaries since January 2006. Leaving thousands of patients without access to the only medication that provides relief for them. They justify these raids with misinformation and lies to make themselves look legitimate. Often stating the dispensaries were being operated wrong i.e. making a profit or giving marijuana to those whom did not medically need it. When in fact it has nothing to do with the reasons they state and everything to do with the DEA’s financial budget. You see the DEA gets to keep everything they confiscate from their so called raids for themselves, thus increasing their budget with each raid. What better and easier target then a medical marijuana dispensary operating out in the open for all to see. The timing is not coincidental. See this Time magazine article dated January 11, 2007.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1576844,00.htm
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), which annually loses some 3% of its 5,000 agents to attrition, has a two-year hiring freeze because of budget cuts to U.S. programs. DEA bean counters say they would need an additional $12 million to maintain current agent levels. The DEA's overseas funding has increased, but overall, DEA chief financial officer Frank Kalder admits, "there will be less drug enforcement going on. There's no getting around that."
That 12 million is just around the corner with just a few more dispensaries. Now they can all keep their jobs. Instead of combating the real drug problem of international heroin and cocaine, they have opted for the cowards’ way out to attack sick people and medical cannabis. While they are arresting cancer and AIDS patients the Time magazine article goes on to say this:
The White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy estimates that opium production in Afghanistan, which not only provides 90% of the heroin consumed globally but also funds Taliban activities, rose 61% last year over 2005. Some 670 tons of heroin are expected to flood the market, and that should slash the street price of a kilo of Southwest Asian heroin, now about $90,000 in Los Angeles
It is time to stand together as a community and demand an end to this war on Medical Marijuana by the DEA. We were warned of these times of turmoil and it fell upon deaf ears. We cannot lay down now. It is a time to unite and fight. We must voice to our local governments and elected state and federal officials that we the people demand this attack on Medical marijuana stop. We need to stress the urgency to reschedule marijuana to our congress in the form of emails, letters, and phone calls. I urge you to support those whom the DEA has arrested for Medical marijuana at court dates and rallies. They are the martyrs. Through their suffering in trials and prison years a change will come. We need to contact our local congress person and tell them as their constituents we want them to support the Hinchey-Rohrabacher Amendment to stop federal funding for Medical Marijuana arrests and prosecutions. We have come along way in this movement, we must not point out our differences but instead press forward together to obtain the goals of safe access for all patients across the state.

By Luke Scarmazzo