Federal Funding: Strings Attached
Follow the Money Honey...
by Annette M. Hall
According to an article on today's My Motherlode,
State, local and federal agencies will begin working together again to combat the cultivation
of marijuana plants. What sticks in my craw about what authorities are calling the CAMP program
is the fact that local resources are being used in this campaign.
Across the State of California voters in local communities voted against funding measures that
were to provide additional funding to the police and fire units in the area. Apparently the
measure was just another scam to bilk taxpayers out of even more money.
Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced the beginning of California's 2006 Campaign Against
Marijuana Planting (CAMP) eradication program. Last year the CAMP program was responsible for
seizing more than one million illegal marijuana plants growing on public lands, with the
average raid netting 4,800 plants with a street value of more than $4.5 billion.
The authorities have already confiscated over 50,000 marijuana plants this year.
It's a plant for crying out loud. Don't our law enforcement people have enough to do?
Protecting citizens from crime, capturing robbers, and tracking down murderers should
be their number one priority. Do you ever get the feeling you are living in the twilight
zone, where police spend their time harassing people for driving without their seatbelt?
People are arrested for growing herbs, yet burglars, murders, drunk drivers and those
committing identity theft are left to roam the streets freely.
Seems a little ironic doesn't it?
Not really.
These programs are funded with matching federal grants. The recent
"Click it or Ticket" program was brought
to citizen's compliments of ex-President Bill Clinton via executive order.
Our federal government can't force states to participate in these man-hour draining
programs; they just encourage them, by making it very lucrative for the state to do
so. Every state in the country now has a mandatory seatbelt law, except New Hampshire,
which decided to forego the federal bounty.
These types of programs don't serve the public good. In fact, they simply make a bad
situation worse. By accepting federal funding for the CAMP program, the feds are able
to keep a handle on how the situation is handled, the program drains funding from
otherwise worthy programs, which ultimately end up underfunded.
California schools, including some in the Central Valley, may
begin random drug testing
of students in order to answer one fundamental question: Does it really work? The Bush
administration thinks it does, which is why the White House wants a record $15 million
to fund random drug tests for school students. Schools in Valley and Mother Lode towns
including Angels Camp, Clovis, Kingsburg and Fowler have initiated voluntary student
drug testing.
The war against marijuana does not protect the public, it only serves to fill up an
already overburdened prison system and it drives the street value of weed up by decreasing
the availablity. When the President talks about winning the so-called war on drugs, he's
only blowing smoke.
Ask him what he's doing about all those illegal alien's crossing the border everyday? I'll
bet you get yet another blank stare. Just follow the money honey...
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Your Tax Dollars at Work:
- Counterdrug Operations
Sponsoring Agency: Civil Air Patrol
(CAP)
CAP is authorized to support DoD, DEA, U.S. Customs Service, U.S. Forest Service, and
local, state and federal law enforcement agencies in Counterdrug operations. CAP can augment
marijuana reconnaissance, assist with aerial photography, and transporting staff, critical
evidence, documents, parts and witnesses to and from remote areas. Also, advanced technology
such as CAP's single-frame video capability can instantaneously transmit reconnaissance photos
of remote areas to command centers.
- Community Oriented Policing Services COPS
Sponsoring Agency: Department of Justice
Provides funding for hiring of more police officers
under the Universal Hiring Program. The COPS in Schools program provides grants for the hiring
of officers to fight crime and disorder around schools. The COPS office also provides funding
for equipment and technology; innovative programs (e.g. The Methamphetamine Initiative); training
and technical assistance; and program assessment and policy support.
- Drug Court Discretionary Grant Program (DCDG)
Sponsoring Agency: BJA
DCDG provides financial and technical assistance to states, state courts,
local courts, units of local government, and American Indian tribal governments to develop and
implement treatment drug courts that effectively integrate substance abuse treatment, mandatory
drug testing, sanctions and incentives, and transitional services in a judicially supervised
court setting with jurisdiction over nonviolent, substance-abusing offenders.
- Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Academy Training Programs
Sponsoring Agency: DEA
The DEA Office of Training is the preeminent law enforcement training
organization for national and international drug law enforcement training. The mission of the
Office of Training is to provide technical and non-technical training to DEA personnel and
appropriate domestic and foreign police agencies that will improve individual as well as
organizational performance and assist in achieving the agency's mission and performance
goals as well as those of their assigned police agencies.
- Enforcing the Underage Drinking Laws Program
Sponsoring Agency: OJJDP
Enforcing the Underage Drinking Laws program, a $50 million program of
block grants, discretionary programs, and training and technical assistance. It is helping all 50
States and the District of Columbia develop comprehensive and coordinated initiatives to enforce
State laws that prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages to minors and to prevent the purchase or
consumption of alcoholic beverages by minors (defined as individuals under 21 years of age).
Updated August 22, 2006
