Intelligence community and cannabis

Smoker's Lounge
#1

Continuing the discussion from Nevil passes and the seed drops start!:

I am not saying any of this stuff is necessarily untrue, but there is a lot of cannabis lore that simply doesn’t align with reality in terms of government capabilities over the decades. Law enforcement was super crude back in '95. This idea that plant genetic evidence could be used to link crimes and grow operations, and then that evidence could later be used in a court of law to illuminate the network and organization of the cannabis world, well, it’s fantastical in 1995. It’s far fetched even today. Even what American spooks were doing back then was quite crude and no offense to the Dutch cannabis scene, but they didn’t quite register on American intelligence radar like they would like to believe. American intelligence was busy working with real drug traffickers and doing real damage to the world, not slinging Haze in coffee shops.

I’ve noticed that people in the cannabis community (I blame the Dutch) sometimes prescribe an almost illuminati like power to law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The reality is that if you look behind the curtain, they are disorganized, slow to adapt to change, and not very innovative; the hallmarks of any bureaucracy.

So much of what I read, from the origins of G13, to the stories of American spies trying to weaponize ‘potent Dutch strains’ reads like half-baked euro-fantasy.

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Nevil passes and the seed drops start!
#2

Agreed all the way before 9-11 and domestic/international surveillance spike! Welcome to 1984 @Eudaemon, Big Brother is in our pocket and if not, in all our neighbors pockets…

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#3

Not worried, in a prohibition state, small grow…they can’t seize my assets for less than an ounce of weed again can they…:open_mouth:Be well and careful my friend, and be glad you live in your state…my old domicile was ocean side PCH, right above thousand steps beach Laguna! Thank god Mom was an overachiever! Come to think of it that is where I grew my first plant in 1983!!! ( on my roof) why do they not recognize our medicine works way better than the amphetimines they try to give me for ADD/ spectrum… Much Love and forgive my ramblings… too much Cabernet S and Kush LOL!!!

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#4

The intelligence and law enforcement world is divided into pre and post 9/11. The changes were just staggering. The patriot act, combined with incredible advancements in technology and our willingness to submit to it, just created a perfect storm of 1984. In terms of surveillance and state capabilities, 2003 makes 1998 look like the stone age, despite there being only a 5 year difference. In 1995, they might as well have been driving model Ts with how much 9/11 advanced everything.

If it didn’t have such serious implications, it is an incredibly impressive apparatus to behold.

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#5

Well said @Eudaemon!!!

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#6

Actually the dea did hav a intrest in the dutch cannabis scene. They tried to extradite a man for sending seeds under charges like being involved in a conspiracy to produce drugs. And kept the case going for over a decade before finaly dropping the charges. The dea were also involved in licencing a certain company who secretly did huge money deals with bayer to make some of the first cannabis medication. Yet at the same time they were pushing this idea that cannabis will send you mad and is evil and has no medical value. Oh and some of these same names that keep popping up were coincidental involved in phylos and collecting the genetic material. Only to later claim they had no idea what it could be used for, the real goals of the company and how stupid these big money players really thought cannabis users are.

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#7

On the pre/post 911 topic…

We all remember Mark Emery’s 98 issues.

I still don’t understand how it was a NCIS and vancouver police operation… :rofl: Navy cops from a different country?

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#8

I don’t disagree that the DEA had an interest in every cannabis scene, including the Dutch. They went after seed producers, glass makers, hydro stores, everyone and everything they could. But, it was all low tech investigative work of limited scale and size. They weren’t mapping genomes to try and bring down networks. Also, having the DEA after you is a lot different than having spooks after you. One is DoJ and the other is DoD; one arrests (or extradites) you, the other kills you.

I don’t disagree that American law enforcement was interested in every cannabis scene around the world, but they were law enforcement. The only places that American intelligence were operating in regards to the drug scene were Asia and Latin America. And in no places on earth was technology that advanced being used for anything cannabis enforcement related. You couldn’t even have used such technology in a court of law because genomic data of that type didn’t have enough scientific rigor behind it at the time to be used convincingly to map out networks beyond a reasonable doubt. I still don’t believe that’s possible, but we’ve made such advances in genomic technology, that I don’t feel as confident making that assertion about today.

If we are talking about pharma, as was mentioned, I still just don’t see it. There are no dark, closed source, hidden secrets in the genetic makeup of cannabis. One company can’t sequence part or all of it and lock the secrets down. Is gene sequencing of cannabis plants around the world valuable enough for pharma to get involved in some dark, seedy game of corporate/state hybrid espionage? No, just absolutely no. At no point do these companies need to resort to such outlandish and fantastical methods to accomplish their ends. The reason I believe all these people are lying isn’t because of what they claim; big pharma was doing exactly that kind of stuff; law enforcement was doing exactly that kind of stuff. It just all occurred in much more banal, much less exciting ways, and more pedestrian ways.

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#9

While in the USAFSS (Security Service), the intelligence-gathering arm, The U.S., indeed, “spied on Americans”. All you had to do was monitor communications on the receiving end. I picked up a transmission from New York - Djibouti, a called routed from, get this…a house 3 doors from my childhood residence, on the opposite side of the street. They family was calling their Son in the Peace Corp. GCHQ, Can, Germany, all foreign Allies were in on the game. On the drug side of things, from Peshawar, then West Pakistan, we monitored the Opium AND Hash trade moving from Afghanistan, Northern Pakistan, Iran, Western India. CIA operatives were all over that area, Air America being their Air arm. Lot of memories, I tell ya!!! SS/BW…mister :honeybee: :100: :pray: :heart_eyes:

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#10

The military/intelligence community is 20-30 years ahead of the private market in technology. When I was in the Navy in the late 70’s I was blown away by the technology on the ship I was on. It was being rebuilt into a Nuclear Powered Cruiser. We had radar and computer guided weapons on our ship and seeing them be tested back then was fascinating. I freaking couldn’t believe some stuff.

They know everything, lol. If they want to.

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#11

The only difference is now law enforcement has the exact same tools and gear. The LAPD uses the same intelligence analysis software suite and framework as the DoD’s Joint Special Operations Command, if that tells you anything.

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#12

In the light of 9/11 you can see how they justify it. As long as it’s not abused I could give a shit what they know about me. The only laws I ever broke were being a pot head and selling a few bags to get one every now and then to supply my own habit. Or the growing I did in the past. It was always for me to smoke. Once, I had enough that I would sell a quarter ounce to a neighbor friend for beer money now and then. I was never the big guy.

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#13

You can ask me about homeland, I know first-hand.
Abused you don’t know what abusive power is, actually not at all.

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#14

Unless you been there and been had.

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#15
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#16

The first mistake people make is underestimating their enemies.

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#17

Sorry to burst your bubble here, but the house did not pass a law. They passed a BILL. That does not make it a law.

And you can believe what you want of all the fairy tale promises and political BS out there, or you can listen to what Biden himself said. As in recent quotes like this:

“The truth of the matter is, there’s not nearly been enough evidence that has been acquired as to whether or not it is a gateway drug,” Biden said,
(https://www.businessinsider.com/joe-biden-marijuana-gateway-drug-but-research-doesnt-support-that-2019-11/?utm_source=reddit.com).

And Biden has made a career out of having a hard line on drugs. Perhaps you missed that in the 20th century? In 1989, senator Biden went on national television criticizing a plan from President Bush I to escalate the war on drugs. According to Biden, the plan didn’t go far enough. Quote: “Quite frankly, the president’s plan is not tough enough, bold enough, or imaginative enough to meet the crisis at hand.” He called not just for harsher punishments for drug dealers but to “hold every drug user accountable.” As the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Biden did not just support the war on drugs and mass incarceration; he wrote many of the laws that helped build a punitive criminal justice system. That included measures that enacted more incarceration, more prisons, and tougher prison sentences for drug offenses.

Those are Biden facts… not promises or wishful thinking position statements.

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#18

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When all that money has nowhere else to go, it turns inward. Does my local county need tanks? I hope not, but it doesn’t look good for the military budget when the tanks pile up in the yard.

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#19

I agree. Biden was onboard at least as much as any politician from that era. We’re fortunate that presidents are not kings or dictators… Especially in this era, the only thing that keeps us out of trouble is the limited power of individual politicians, forcing them to grab at pieces of the pie with dozens of others. The broader political class has to pay at least some regards to the popular opinion, which fortunately is strongly against the war on drugs right now.

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#20

I agree with you :100:, @PanchoVilla. President-Elect Biden made a Political Career out of being “tough on crime”, “three strikes and you’re out”, more money for foreign interdiction (covert). He may have “evolved” of the years, but to be a Delaware mainstay, that’s the route he took. There’s a bunch of minorities doing Life for three POSSESSION charges!!! I voted for the guy this time, but I took off the "rose colored glasses a l-o-n-g time ago. You can take what @OleReynard said to the nearest Bank, they won’t even ask you for ID!!! SS/BW…mister :honeybee: :100: :pray:

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