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Is marijuana criminal defense attorney Tom Dean a prohibitionist who
wants to keep cannabis or marijuana illegal?
Let's analyze the situation.
1) First marijuana criminal defense lawyer Tom Dean runs a law firm
that specializes in marijuana and marijuana arrests.
If marijuana is legalized, that means Tom Dean's law firm will go out
of business.
No marijuana arrests, means no customers and that means Tom Dean is
out of business.
2) Second Tom Dean also seems to make money helping the Arizona legal
medical marijuana cartel.
The Arizona legal medical marijuana cartel is the 150 or so medical
marijuana dispensaries that are in Arizona. I have heard they are
owned by about six different groups of people. These folks currently
have a government monopoly on growing and selling medical marijuana in
Arizona.
And because of that monopoly these firms are able to sell medical
marijuana at the rip off price of $300 an ounce.
If marijuana is legalized and marijuana becomes a generic commodity
like tomatoes or potatoes that price is going to drop like a rock.
Legalization of marijuana will almost certainly mean most, if not all
of the members of the Arizona legal medical marijuana cartel will go
out of business, or their profits will drop substantially.
And of course that means they won't be able to pay Tom Dean big bucks
to help them go from being the legal medical marijuana cartel, to the
legal recreational marijuana cartel.
So based on items 1) and 2) it looks like Tom Dean has a big time
financial interest in keeping marijuana illegal. Legalize cannabis or
marijuana and almost all of Tom Dean's business goes away.
Tom Dean's track record also seems to say he wants to keep marijuana illegal.
When me, Alex and Dave wrote the initial Safer Arizona initiative we
made it 100% legalization, with two minor exceptions. First we added
an age limit of 21, and second we allowed a small sales tax on the
sale of marijuana.
Tom Dean was supposed to review the initiative for CONSTITUTIONALITY
questions. But instead of just reviewing it for Constitutional
problems, Tom Dean gutted the initiative and added numerous marijuana
crimes.
Tom Dean made it illegal to grow marijuana that was visible from the
public. So growing marijuana in an unfenced backyard was illegal. Same
for growing marijuana in a backyard with a knot hole in the fence that
let the the cops see the marijuana.
Tom Dean made it illegal to grow marijuana within 1,000 feet of a school.
Tom Dean made it illegal to grow something like more than 48 marijuana
plants without a sales tax license.
Tom Dean made it illegal for ANYBODY, to sell marijuana without a
sales tax license.
And of course with marijuana still being illegal at the Federal level,
the DEA, FBI or other Federal cops could use public records to hunt
down and arrest a person who got a sales tax license to grow or sell
marijuana.
So based on my experience of working with Tom Dean at Safer Arizona, I
think Tom Dean is a prohibitionist who wants to keep marijuana
illegal.
I suspect it's all about the $$$ MONEY $$$. I'm sure Tom Dean doesn't
think marijuana is a dangerous drug.
Yes, I seem Tom Dean at PCC meeting smoking marijuana. And yes, Tom
Dean does seem to have a medical marijuana card.
But just because Tom Dean seems to use marijuana, doesn't mean he
wants to legalize it.
Sadly as Frank Zappa said, I think Tom Dean is "only in it for the money".
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If you really want to legalize marijuana, your going to need to have
an initiative like the RAD marijuana initiative.
I guess you could come up with an 18 year age limit if you wanted it
to be politically correct. Like we did with the Safer Arizona
initiative, where we used 21.
And you could all a small sales tax on it. But nothing more. Not like
the ridiculous 300%, $900 an ounce tax on medical marijuana that
Kyrsten Sinema tried to create in 2011.
I can guarantee you that Tom Dean ain't ever going to come up with an
initiative that ACTUALLY legalized marijuana.
But of course if you ACTUALLY legalize marijuana, the right way, it's
going to be a generic commodity, and nobody is going to make megabucks
off of it.
And just because I'm not a 24/7 stoner like most of you people doesn't
mean I don't want to legalize all drug.
The insane war on drugs has turned American into the world's largest
police state.
I have wanted to legalize ALL drugs, not just marijuana since I have
been in high school.
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Initiative to re-legalize Marijuana in Arizona in 2020 C-01-2020
OFFICIAL TITLE
100% Complete re-legalization of Marijuana & Hashish
FULL TEXT OF PROPOSITION
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Arizona, the Constitution
of the State of Arizona is amended BY THE ADDITION OF A NEW ARTICLE to
read:
100% complete re-legalization of marijuana & hashish
1. The government shall recognize that marijuana abuse is NOT a
criminal problem but a medical problem.
2. The government shall NOT tax, regulate, or pass any laws governing
marijuana or marijuana activities.
3. The government shall NOT assist any other government entities, such
as Federal, foreign, world, Native American or state governments in
enforcing any laws against marijuana.
4. The government shall NOT pass any guide lines, rules, regulations
or laws discriminating against people or entities that use marijuana.
Such as laws that limit a marijuana user's guns rights or parental
rights.
5. Any person convicted of any marijuana offense in the past shall
automatically have their criminal record cleared of those charges and
automatically receive a full pardon for those charges.
6. Any person arrested for any marijuana offense in the past who
accepted a plea bargain for reduced charges shall automatically have
their criminal record cleared of those reduced charges and
automatically receive a full pardon for those reduced charges.
7. Any government employee, agent, elected official, judge, law
enforcement officer or prosecutor that falsely arrests a person,
violates a person's rights, passes a law or issues a ruling, guideline
or edict that that interferes with a person's marijuana use rights
defined here shall be personally and civilly liable to each person for
each incident for a minimum of million in damages or 10 times the
actual amount of damages whichever is greater. There shall be no
immunity to a person who claims to be "acting in good faith" or for
any other reason.
8 . All government courts shall accept cases involving marijuana use,
and decide the case based on the oral, written, or other contracts of
the parties involved. Courts may not refuse cases by saying that
marijuana is illegal under Federal law, international law, or other
laws.
9. Definitions: For this initiative the word "marijuana" refers to any
form of marijuana, cannabis, hashish or hemp and includes concentrated
forms such as THC, CBD, hash, hash oil, wax, shatter and all other
forms. This includes all parts of any plant of the genus cannabis,
whether growing or not, the seeds of such plant, the resin extracted
from any part of a plant of the genus cannabis; and every compound,
manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture or preparation of such plant,
its seeds or its resin; and every compound, manufacture, salt,
derivative, mixture or preparation of such resin or
tetrahydrocannabinol. This includes, but will not be limited to; all
paraphernalia for marijuana use, such as pipes, bongs, cigarette
papers or dabbing tools.
10. "Marijuana activities" shall be defined as; but shall not be
limited to: using, smoking, vaping, eating, consuming, drinking,
snorting, transdermal delivery, injecting, sale, transfer, growth,
cultivating, manufacture, processing, cooking, production, storage,
possession, giving legal advice, transportation, or importation of
marijuana. This includes any form of "marijuana use": recreational,
religious, medical, commercial, industrial or any other use.
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