Where’s The DEA Weed Report?

Another year has come and gone, and with it $3.3 billion has flowed into the DEA’s budget…

Yet their annual report on marijuana seizures and arrests is nowhere to be found.

Ironically, the DEA’s own 2024 Budget Performance Summary claims they are “transforming [their] ability to leverage data to make operational decisions, organize priorities, and leave a positive impact on local communities.”

So where is the data?

👉 Every year, the DEA shares stats on how many cannabis plants they’ve seized and how many arrests they’ve made through their Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program.

👉The most recent published report (all the way back in May 2023), showed a spike in plant seizures but a drop in arrests.

This year? Crickets.

NORML's Deputy Director, Paul Armentano, criticized the DEA's lack of transparency, stating:

Meanwhile, taxpayers keep footing the bill for the global war on drugs, and the DEA is gearing up for another year with a request of $3,769,921,000 for FY 2025.

In today’s world, data is everything. It drives decisions, shapes policies, and keeps people in power accountable.

At the end of the day, no data means no accountability. And without accountability, justice remains out of reach.

Data Data Data:

Who Is Brownie Mary?

When you think of the Medical Marijuana movement, the face of a 65-year-old lady handing out weed brownies might not be the first thing that comes to mind… but it should.

Mary Jane Rathbun (yes, that’s her real name), was born 1922, in Chicago and grew up in Minneapolis.

After moving out at 13, she followed a long road of social activism fighting for rights of miners to unionize in Wisconsin and abortion rights for women in Minneapolis which eventually led her to San Francisco.

Her first arrest came in 1981.

She was making weed brownies at her home and selling them, advertising them in bulletin boards as “magically delicious” brownies.

After police raided her home and seized over 18 pounds of cannabis she was sentenced to 500 hours of community service, which she used to involve herself in the Shanti Project.

But Mary didn’t stop when her hours were up. She continued working with the Shanti Project and volunteering at San Francisco General Hospital, where she witnessed the devastating effects of the AIDS epidemic firsthand. Patients suffering from nausea, wasting syndrome, and severe pain found relief in her cannabis brownies—medicine that helped them eat, manage symptoms, and regain some quality of life.

It was then that Mary stopped baking for profit and started baking with purpose. Her brownies became a lifeline for the patients she cared for, and her work began to reshape the conversation around cannabis as medicine.

Her second arrest came when she was delivering a batch of brownies to a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy. The same cop who was involved in both arrests, had been arrested for shooting off his gun in the driveway of his girlfriend’s apartment while drunk and naked...

Mary continued making her iconic brownies - baking nearly 600 a day at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Her third arrest in 1992 made headlines worldwide, and she was acquitted on the grounds of medical necessity—a huge win that showed her actions were more about helping people than breaking the law.

Teaming up with activist Dennis Peron, Mary helped start the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club, the first public cannabis dispensary in the U.S. Their work led to big wins like Proposition P in 1991, which decriminalized medical cannabis in San Francisco, and Proposition 215 in 1996, which made California the first state to legalize medical marijuana.

She was unshakable in her belief that cannabis was medicine and that people deserved access to it, no matter the legal risks.

That’s it for this week’s puff!

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Catch you next week.

– Pothead