DEA: a Psychological Terror Group

DEA: a Psychological Terror Group; Siobhan Reynolds; War on Doctors/Pain Crisis blog of the Pain Relief Network; 2007-10-20.

Regarding this Blog Entry:
No Pattern or Rules to DEA Attacks
by James Anthony; LEAP; 2007-10-17

This essay, excerpted below, by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) blogger James Anthony focuses on raids against state licensed medical marijuana cooperatives, but could just as easily be about raids on medical offices of state licensed physicians who issue legal prescriptions for pain medications to people in pain. said about our doctor busts.

The Pain Relief Network sincerely appreciate the input from this law enforcement officer from LEAP and hope this is the end of all the blaming the victim that has been going on.

When courageous and enlightened law enforcement agents themselves speak the truth about aggressive federal police actions targeting innocent patients, physicians, and advocates, it makes for powerful testimony. PRN encourages LEAP members to investigate and write more about the DEA’s reign of terror against people in pain and the doctors who try and relieve their suffering.

Excerpts from James Anthony’s LEAP blog (full text):
Patients and advocates often ask if there’s any pattern to DEA raids. This a common and understandable question–as human beings we want a predictable and sensible universe. And this natural impulse to seek patterns is exploited by all psychological terror groups in a number of ways. I include the DEA as a psychological terror group because,

1. they are losing the war on medical marijuana and must resort to ever more desperate tactics, and

2. because they are part of the US government which openly condones torture and preemptive warfare–clearly a dangerous and ruthless adversary.

There are two basic ways to exploit this human desire for patterns:

1. Be utterly random - this generates fear and leaves the victim completely without any pattern to rely on - think of random car bombings and how demoralizing that must be, the only protection is to never go out in public or to leave the area.

2. Create the appearance of patterns and then break them. This is good because it leaves the victim eternally vigilant and seeking for and inventing non-existent patterns. In experiments with animals this is called “experimental neurosis.” It is a proven method of driving mammals crazy and leads to fits and frenzies of self-biting, mania, and catatonia. The DEA and the US government are well aware of this dimension of psychological warfare.

[DEA] truly believes [they are at] war and we are the enemy. They are not interested in debating this issue or in allowing different states to try different approaches. To the DEA, we are evil and must be eradicated – or intimidated into surrender.

Given all that, the DEA does three things:

1. it throws darts at a map (randomness),

2. it looks for maximum propaganda value (what story can they tell to make us look bad?–and those are indeed narrative patterns), and

3. individual offices in the various geographical areas have to justify their existence for continued funding and positive job evaluations…

So we have the following patterns:

1. Randomness…

2. Propaganda Narratives…

3. Low Hanging Fruit – who would you want to go after: a well-organized 100 million a year crack, heroin and meth distribution network… or a bunch of peaceful medical cannabis advocates, sitting there with no violent inclinations at all and a sign hanging up saying Medical Cannabis - Come and Bust Us, We Will Lie Down on the Ground? Yeah, me too.

So when you need to bump up your stats (or you need to justify that useless multi-agency task force’s multi-million dollar budget that ain’t done jack all year), whip up a “year-long investigation” … and put on the flak jacket, round up the SWAT team and go kick some ass. Oh yeah, and extra bonus points if you can bust a person of color, or a youth, or someone with a record, or someone who’s doing it right and actually balancing the books, generating a surplus and paying all their taxes – then you can use their financial statements against them…

I’m really sorry that I can’t give you the “rules,” so we never have to worry about being busted. The DEA is not rules-based. It is our enemy – distribute cannabis, and you are fair game for capture, torture, imprisonment, kidnapping, and loss of all property (the only thing left is attainder of blood – where they curse your entire family name for all time to come, but give them a minute to work it out).

Of course you can sweeten the odds: have your city government and neighbors love you, be white, sit in a wheelchair, change your last name to Bush, be extremely lucky, turn around three times counter-clockwise every morning and say the Hail Mary backwards…

Here’s my advice, which I give to every potential client at the first meeting: Don’t do it (for all the reasons given above and more). And I totally understand that most of them walk away. That’s a good thing. If they go for it anyway, I call that committed. And that’s a good thing too. But just be real. And be smart.

Anyone who operates a dispensary has an extremely high risk-comfort level, or you could say, is either a hero or a fool.

[END]

---

As always, we ask that you help PRN fight to protect the rights of patients and the doctors who treat them. Thank you for clicking the link below.



www.painreliefnetwork.org
info@painreliefnetwork.org

---

Shop online using iGive, and Support the Pain Relief Network!

---