Ramarley Graham, an 18-year-old teenager, was killed in his home on East 229th Street in the Bronx last week by plainclothes narcotics cops. Graham, who was unarmed, was shot in the chest as he was trying to flush a small amount of weed down the toilet, as his terrified grandmother and 6-year-old brother watched from a few feet away.

Via AlterNet

While details of the tragedy are still unfolding, it appears that the teen had a small amount of marijuana on him, so walked home to get away from the cops because he didn’t want to be arrested. The cops followed him, broke into his home and killed him in his bathroom while he was trying to flush a small amount of marijuana down the toilet. The police officer who shot Graham said he believed the young man had a gun. He did not – no weapons were found.

The bottom line is that an 18-year-old is dead because of the insane marijuana arrest crusade by the NYPD.

Graham’s family and the community are righteously demanding justice. There was a passionate protest of hundreds of people outside the 47th Precinct station in the Bronx Monday night, where they condemned police violence and the almost-routine killings of unarmed men like Mr. Graham. Graham’s sister is quoted in yesterday’s New York Times, saying “This is not just about Ramarley. This is about all young black men.”

Incidentally, just the day before the tragic killing, the New York City media was buzzing about the 2011 marijuana arrest numbers. There were more than 50,000 marijuana arrests in 2011, the second-most in NYC history and the most in more than a decade.  The NYPD bust more people for small amounts of marijuana than any other crime in the city. And these 50,000 arrests are overwhelmingly young black and Latino men – even though, according to the government’s own data, they are no more likely to use or sell marijuana than young whites.

Those figures are nothing to brag about. It’s time for Mayor Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly to pull their heads out of their asses. This happened on their watch because of their policies.

At a community council meeting at the Holy Rosary Church on Adee Avenue last night—the first since the incident—the Mayor’s appalling absence was certainly noticed. From DNA Local News:

“Where’s Bloomberg?” asked Graham’s mother, Constance Malcolm, who said she hasn’t heard from the mayor. She later criticized the NYPD for not immediately firing [Officer Richard] Haste. “The police officer is still working,” she told reporters. “He should be charged.”

When Bronx Commander Carlos Gomez tried to give an account of what happened on Wednesday night, those in attendance—many who knew Ramarley Graham since he was baby—made it clear they didn’t believe a single word he was saying:

“That’s a lie!” yelled a woman in the audience. “Don’t cover it up!”

Members of the community also made it known that they wanted serious reforms of policing in their neighborhood.

“I want local police in our community who know our children growing up, who don’t feel threatened by them,” said Sheron Pearson, whose daughter knew Graham.

Other people expressed the raw emotion they were still feeling.

“I’m so disgusted. I’m angry,” said Denise Omenih, 52. “I feel violated. It could have been my child.”

Damn straight! If this case isn’t the very last straw before a change comes in the NYPD’s policies, then there’s no justice to be had for Ramarley Graham or anyone else who just wants to just be left alone to smoke a little pot! Jesus, they killed a KID over pot. If there’s ever been a situation for the pro-legalization crowd to rally around, IT IS THIS ONE. If Governor Cuomo fancies himself a leader, now would be the moment to lead the way to medical cannabis in New York State.

What a difference a coast makes: I live in sunny, liberal Los Angeles. Within just a few blocks of where I am currently typing this sentence, there must be twelve to fifteen medical cannabis dispensaries. Not one is a crime magnet. They coexist peacefully with other legit businesses like restaurants, appliance stores, furniture stores, opticians, sporting goods stores and bakeries. It’s worth noting as the Obama administration ramps up their pointless war on medical cannabis, that when the President appeared last October for a campaign stop at the popular Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles soul food restaurant, he was surrounded on all sides by law-abiding medical cannabis dispensaries mere hundreds of feet away! Did the Secret Service know this? Of course they did!

There are, I have read, 3X as many medical marijuana collectives in Los Angeles as there are all of the Starbucks and McDonald’s in this city, combined! In some precincts in Los Angeles, crime stats were found to fall significantly lower after the dispensaries opened their doors (they almost always have security guards). Cops in LA simply don’t give a shit about pot anymore. They don’t want you to blow pot smoke in their faces, but it’s a non-issue here, as it should be everywhere. They know, from years of experience at this point, that it’s not a problem, or certainly less of one than alcohol is.

In marked contrast to a dead young man in New York City, I can legally buy extremely high grade marijuana easier and faster than I can refill a regular prescription. I could leave my home, cross the street, buy a quarter pound of weed and be back home within five-ten minutes, legally twisting a spliff.

Across the country someone lost his life, gunned down in front of his kid brother and grandmother for a small amount of the same PLANT? There’s something wrong with our drug laws in this country. I hope some good comes out of this this incident because it’s really, really sad what happened to Ramarley Graham.

Below, watch as the probable-violators of Ramarley’s Fourth Amendment rights kick his grandmother’s door down:
 

 
Well, well, well… Look who was PRO-medical marijuana—actually went out on a limb for it—way back before he wanted to behead people and cut off their hands for possessing it…

Here’s what Newt Gingrich wrote to the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1982:

Legal Status of Marijuana

To the Editor:

The American Medical Association’s Council on Scientific Affairs should be commended for its report, “Marijuana: Its Health Hazards and Therapeutic Potential” (1981;246:1823). Not only does the report outline evidence of marijuana’s potential harms, but it distinguishes this concern from the legitimate issue of marijuana’s important medical benefits. All too often the hysteria that attends public debate over marijuana’s social abuse compromises a clear appreciation for this critical distinction.

Since 1978, 32 states have abandoned the federal prohibition to recognize legislatively marijuana’s important medical properties. Federal law, however, continues to define marijuana as a drug “with no accepted medical use,” and federal agencies continue to prohibit physician-patient access to marijuana. This outdated federal prohibition is corrupting the intent of the state laws and depriving thousands of glaucoma and cancer patients of the medical care promised them by their state legislatures.

On Sept 16, 1981, Representative Stewart McKinney and I introduced legislation designed to end bureaucratic interference in the use of marijuana as a medicant. We believe licensed physicians are competent to employ marijuana, and patients have a right to obtain marijuana legally, under medical supervision, from a regulated source. The medical prohibition does not prevent seriously ill patients from employing marijuana; it simply deprives them of medical supervision and access to a regulated medical substance. Physicians are often forced to choose between their ethical responsibilities to the patient and their legal liabilities to federal bureaucrats.

Representative McKinney and I hope the Council will take a close and careful look at this issue. Federal policies do not reflect a factual or balanced assessment of marijuana’s use as a medicant. The Council, by thoroughly investigating the available materials, might well discover that its own assessment of marijuana’s therapeutic value has, in the past, been more than slightly shaded by federal policies that are less than neutral

Newt Gingrich
House of Representatives
Washington, DC

Fourteen years later, as House Speaker, this same hypocritical piece-of-shit would introduce the Drug Importer Death Penalty Act of 1996, which called for executing any person caught importing just an ounce or two of high-grade marijuana (“100 usual doses” is how it was written in the legislation, which obviously didn’t pass).

What’s more, when challenged about his own admitted use of marijuana in the past, Gingrich had this to say to Wall Street Journal reporter Hilary Stout:

“That was a sign we were alive and in graduate school in that era. See, when I smoked pot it was illegal, but not immoral. Now, it is illegal AND immoral. The law didn’t change, only the morality… That’s why you get to go to jail and I don’t.”

“Okay for thee, but not for me,” sez rich, well-fed white guy. Thanks for the succinct explanation, mean old man!

Now, if you’re looking to make sense of this stuff don’t even try. He’s a Republican, ‘nuff said.

Here’s what Gingrich said at a fundraiser for fellow Georgia GOP pol Rep. Charlie Norwood in 1995:

“If you import a commercial quantity of illegal drugs, it is because you have made the personal decision that you are prepared to get rich by destroying our children. I have made the decision that I love our children enough that we will kill you if you do this.”

“I have decided”???

Imagine this asshole being allowed to decide anything of importance!

Gingrich, unable to help himself, continued:

“The first time we execute 27 or 30 or 35 people at one time, and they go around Colombia and France and Thailand and Mexico, and they say, ‘Hi, would you like to carry some drugs into the U.S.?’ the price of carrying drugs will have gone up dramatically.”

Ethan Nadlemann, the executive director of Drug Policy Action, a bipartisan advocacy group for ending the drug war called Gingrich “basically a nightmare” when it comes to drug policy issues. “For a guy who’s supposed to be an intellectual and intelligent, the quality of the argumentation on his part is embarrassing.”

As one wag quipped on the topic of Drug Importer Death Penalty Act of 1996 at The People’s Forum:

Fortunately didn’t pass. His other proposed acts, the Serial Adultery Death Penalty Act and the Congressional Influence Peddling Death Penalty Act, unfortunately failed as well. And he reportedly killed the Fat Loudmouth Pandering Pseudo-Intellectual Death Penalty Act before it could be introduced.

Republicans whine and Republicans bitch/Our rich are too poor and our poor are too rich.

Below, Newt Gingrich shooting his big mouth off about the drug war and how the US should emulate Singapore(!) on The O’Reilly Factor as “Papa Bear” nods with approval.
 

 
Thank you Mr. Michael Backes of Sacramento, CA!

 

 

 

 
From Good:

The ongoing battle between medical marijuana advocates and law enforcement has begotten some tricky legality, which has lead to all sorts of uncertainty regarding growth and distribution, and, ultimately, prosecution (or non-prosecution) of distributors. Meanwhile, in places like Northern California?