COP on the Hill: Stories from the week of May 15, 2015

Stories from the week of May 15, 2015

Marijuana and the Brain: On Tuesday I attended a luncheon/briefing sponsored by a Congressional office that was a balanced assessment of the potential medical benefits and the known dangers associated with MJ use. I was able to ask the head of NIDA, Dr. Volkow why her agency had not studied the federal patients like Irv Rosenfeld who has been smoking 10 government-supplied joints per day for some 30 years. Her lame (my opinion) excuse was NIDA does not do original research, rather they fund doctors who want to. Pitiful.

Il vaut la peine: I had a brain burp on Monday regarding the French teams which were spending the week talking to almost exclusively police orgs in Denver, Seattle and DC…Yes, the country I could not mention a month ago was France. Due to the positive reports sent to Paris in November of 14 and February of 15 (the visits COP helped to arrange in CO and WA), the French sent teams from Paris to explore the issue more thoroughly.

Alarmed at the imbalance of the meetings, I called my contact at the embassy and asked to meet with the DC team in order to present ideas of why the police orgs oppose legalization. He agreed. I was able to recruit retired MD State Police Officer, Captain Leigh Maddow (also a LEAP board member) at the last moment.

The one hour meeting at the embassy stretched to 90 minutes, as we answered their questions and presented our side of favoring legalize/regulate. The chief of the French team and I had a chance to chat en français for 10 minutes in the parking lot. As you know, always good to speak French with a decent accent (not like Spanish cow – as the saying goes).

The Four Reasons we gave were:

Money for wages, OT, grants from DC and state govt

Money from Civil Asset Forfeiture

Emotion – buddies who died and legalize/regulate means they died in vain

Blue Wall of Silence – cops are intimidated by command and fellow officers/fellow prosecutors, etc into staying silent

As you can imagine, I have been polishing my French several hours per day the last four weeks. I am confident it paid off. I received a nice note from the team leader, thanking Leigh and me for the information. Leadership at LEAP, DPA and MPP received a copy of the results of the meeting and the fact that they can pass on any info to the French and German govts thru me. PS. I know more than I can tell you but……

Double Crown and double chocolate this week!!

1848 Presentations to Congressional staffers..    10 this week

02 meetings this week

  COP stats since inception: August 2009

16 Conversations (five minutes or longer) with Member of Congress..   this week

68 brief chats with Members of Congress..   this week

38 published interviews in major (daily) newspapers or magazine… 00 this week

145 chats with other elected officials, state reps, senators, VIPs, etc.     00 this week

88 interviews and reports in minor media = blogs, cable TV, weekly papers, etc..    this week

57 Radio Interviews..  this week

22 major conferences attended..   (United Nations drug conf, CPAC, LULAC, NRA, CBC, ASA, DPA, Dem & Repub. Presidential conventions., National Review,  etc)    0 this week

38 Appearances on major TV networks..this week (Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, Univision, BBC)…0 this week (BBC)

81 published letters to the editor (value per MAPINC in free publicity: $80,000).. 0 this week

*   2 editorials in daily papers mentioning Howard’s efforts & in support of COP position

Weekly attendance at Grover Norquist’s Wednesday brunch attended by 150 conservative leaders.   Named the “Grand Central Station of the Conservative Movement.”

*      Consider being a member of COP at $30.00 or more per year.   All contributions are tax-deductible.  30 dollars buys all the copy paper COP uses in one year.   Law Enforcement’s voice in opposition to current policy is vital on the Hill to achieve a repeal of federal prohibition.  COP provides that voice.  www.citizensopposingprohibition.org