This week in his “online town hall,” President Obama laughed off one of the questions that has persistently been among the most popular throughout the “Open For Questions” and online town hall voting processes – should we legalize marijuana in order to stimulate the economy?
It’s tempting to believe that the president has been consistently giving short “no” answers every time this question comes up simply because it is a political minefield to tread across. For a first term president, openly seeking to reverse a drug policy that has been virtually unchanged in over 70 years is a risky move. He seems to be a man who understands that lasting changes take patience and hard work to accomplish.
As noted recently, Obama’s approach to the war on drugs is appearing to show signs of a gentle path towards decriminalization or at least tolerance of marijuana. The nomination of Gil Kerlikowske as “drug czar,” and Eric Holder’s statements about allowing states to determine medicial marijuana policy seem to be moves in the right direction, while not expressly advocating legalization.
Unfortunately, it is unclear which marijuana policy we will actually get; the one where individual states are allowed to set their own drug policies that has spurred movements in California and Oregon, or the one where the president glibly belittles the online audience – whose interaction he encouraged – for believing this is an important issue that needs a more nuanced discussion in Washington than “just say no.”
In spite of Attorney General Holder’s recent statements, DEA agents raided a licensed medical marijuana dispensary in San Francisco this week, confusing those of us who have been watching this story with some modicum of hope. It remains to be seen how much the federal approach to marijuana will actually change.
With over 20 million arrests for marijuana in the last 45 years, and an estimated $77 billion in lost taxes and wasted spending every year on an endless “war,” the time has come to have some serious debate and find a reasonable middle ground on this issue.
Arizona’s attorney general is talking potential legalization, and living in a border state he recognizes that this is not just an American problem. He says that over 75% of the money that Mexican drug cartels take in comes from marijuana, most of that from the United States. Secretary of State Clinton acknowledged U.S. complicity in the recent violence in Mexico this week, citing our “insatiable demand” for illegal drugs. Yet in the face of all of this, President Obama laughs at the idea of eliminating the major source of funding for these criminal organizations.
“Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere.”
-President George Washington, on cannabis“Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country.”
-President Thomas Jefferson, on cannabis“When I was a kid I inhaled frequently. That was the point.”
-President Barack Obama, on cannabis“I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.”
-President Franklin D. Roosevelt, on public political pressure
CNN is reporting that NORML’s fundraising has quadrupled in the 24 hours following the president’s dismissive response. If there’s ever going to be a serious debate, much less a change in policy, it will only come as a result of We, The People making them do it.
9 Responses
I respect Obama he is a talented politician, President Obama seems to posse’s insightful, reasonable judgment on many issues, although in the case of marijuana prohibition laws I find Obama’s choice to answer with mocking humor to be lacking. Smoking marijuana is an easy thing to laugh about, it seems there is something about being stoned that brings a smile to people’s faces, however marijuana prohibition is not a joke. We should not be making jokes as millions of Americans are arrested for being caught on the wrong side of moral politicking, we should not laugh as we spend over 30 billion dollars a year going after Americans for smoking weed, we should not giggle and poke fun as we watch billions of dollars in tax revenue slip through our fingers each year, and should we not be jolly as thousands of people are murdered by cartels profiting from America’s moral hypocrisy. I believe there are profound latent consequences in prohibition that are not even factored in to our assessments of the effects of illegality, such as how we view the rule of law and the role of law enforcement in the community, the divisiveness between users and non users, the stigma of mental shock of incarceration. I say pot prohibition is no joke it has real costs paid for in real lives. Freedom is achieved in a country by placing responsibility in the hands of the citizen and not by the state legally enforcing morality.
Posted on March 30th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
He can fuck himself on that one! I am STILL facing felony charges for growing for my OWN personal use! It’s obvious he is not sticking to his guns…fucking snake oil salesman!
Posted on April 4th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
It is worth looking into his voting record, as in all other things he has done, while campaign promises may be pushed aside or “corrected”, he has remained consistent with his prior actions, but he works subtly.
When the Assault Weapons ban was realized to be political suicide, He told Holden to can it, and sent Clinton down to Mexico to drum up fervor on assault weapons coming down from Mexico (using numbers which are horribly misleading) this tactic is going to work wonderfully.
I think the big question is, what is his voting record on the war on drugs?
Posted on April 7th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
“elron”-
You make some pretty bold statements without backing any of them up with facts, so it’s not surprising that you hide behind a fake name and a fake email address.
It’s true Obama has backed off his earlier statements of support for a reinstatement of the assault weapons ban. Perhaps this has something to do with the wingnut fear-machine that’s convincing lunatics that bringing back a law that was on the books for 10 out of the last 15 years is the sudden onset of fascism? I don’t think the administration wants to provoke these idiots any further; they’re already stocking up on guns, trying to build dirty bombs and murdering police officers while openly talking of revolution.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/02/maine_man_tries.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/us/07pittsburgh.html?ref=us
If you’re going to make a statement on this site that someone’s “numbers are horribly misleading,” you’d better be prepared to back it up with something besides theories of ulterior motives.
Here’s Obama’s voting record, http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=9490 – so we have the answer to your “big question”. The only bill dealing with the “war on drugs” in any way that he ever had the chance to vote on was the “patriot” act, so there’s really nothing there to point to. If you can show me some facts instead of making implications, I’d love to see them.
Posted on April 7th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
I wrote him a letter for that one. A scoffing leader is a dangerous one in my opinion.
Posted on April 8th, 2009 at 11:49 am
People hide behind fake names for a number of reasons. Some just don’t want to be coddled. Thanks for your forthright reply.
I apologize for not citing sources, as I was of the belief that 30 seconds with a search engine would verify any of the claims I made, but I will attempt to cite a few myself.
By the numbers.
At the risk of incurring the ire of the fox is always wrong people, here’s foxes rundown
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2009/04/02/myth-percent-guns-mexico-fraction-number-claimed/
Here’s an example rundown of how we get a 90% number
In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced — and of those, 90 percent — 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover — were found to have come from the U.S.
…
The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.
…
None the less, the guns are just one obvious and effective play, that is working very well at encouraging his supporters and their wingnut fear machine that’s convincing lunatics that bringing back a law that was off the books for 5 years is necessary for basic safety (liberty be damned) I think the administration is doing a fine job of provoking these idiots in the direction they want, and your reply is an excellent example of how his machine makes this into a personal and emotional issue for people. Thanks for the illustration. :-p
Let me know if you need help finding out about Clintons trips and the PR she’s generating about our evil guns, or about first Pelosi, then Holden backing off on the issue, and I’ll be happy to provide them.
On to the Marijuana. Thank you for pointing me at a record of his voting. Unfortunately, as your link shows, there’s a big question mark there. I’m curious why Holder made an unequivocal statement ( for the google impaired http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102068538 ) and less than a week later, a SF dispensary was raided by the DEA http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2009/03/marijuana_advocate_flabbergast.php
So, I stand by my initial argument. The Bama works subtly and is very good at allowing his people to build fervor for him, then coming in as the hero to save the day and be the voice of reason (see Penn’s performance as Milk for a great somewhat fictionalized performance) He knows what he’s doing, now it’s just up to us to find out what that is, and decide if it’s something we want to do as well.
May the schwartz be wit’chu.
– Xenu
Dark Overlord, Underlord, and right wing troll :-p
Posted on April 8th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Sunflower pipe,
You make some pretty bold statements without backing any of them up with facts. However, since we want to agree with you, we won’t hold you accountable for them
– The whole group over here on Parsons boats.
Posted on April 8th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Thanks for the clarification on the gun numbers. It’s not really surprising that the politicians choose the statement which sounds best for making their point, and while arguably cherry-picking data, it is technically true. But to extrapolate that into proof of an ulterior motive to violate the 2nd amendment is going a little far. While I don’t necessarily want to get into a prolonged debate about the “right to keep and bear arms” on this post, I believe it’s worth noting that we have this right because “a well regulated militia [is] necessary to the security of a free State.”
“Well regulated” – Congress has the constitutional authority to regulate the “land and naval Forces,” which would of course include militia (armed civilians). So yes, if you have the proper training and the approval of Congress, you can possess certain arms. Others, they have the authority to say you can’t have. I love guns, and I love the fact that our founding fathers had the prescience to create the 2nd amendment. But I don’t want violent criminals, psychotics, or retarded people owning firearms. Gun regulation is both constitutional and necessary.
To be fair, I don’t approve of an outright ban on assault weapons either. But when you use its possible reinstatement as proof of a “subtle” ploy to take away our liberties, it’s just a strawman, and it reduces the credibility of your argument.
I like the way you repeat my own words back at me to attempt to prove an opposite point – except while I provided verifiable recent stories of crazies pushed to violence or attempted terrorism by the fear of impending tyranny, and I’ll happily show you links of Limbaugh, Hannity, or Beck stoking up fear in this regard – you resort to the old tried-and-true personal attack. Nice.
BTW, “wingnut” is generally specific to the Right. Crazies on the Left are “moonbats.” And if I appear to be leaning to the left, it’s quite a testimony to just how severely the conservative movement has alienated moderates.
So, yeah… back to the issue at hand – weed. Obama’s voting record is just a “big question mark” as regards the war on drugs, but I still believe people are innocent until proven guilty.
Thanks for the links about the DEA raids after Holder’s statements – if you go back and read my article all the way through, you’ll notice I already referenced those facts myself, and it should be pretty clear I’m not happy about it. But to call Holder’s statements “unequivocal” is dishonest; he leaves himself plenty of wiggle-room… in fact, you could make the argument that what he said changes nothing. Federal law doesn’t recognize medical marijuana, so he could authorize these raids without contradicting his statement… and that’s part of why I’m still concerned.
But as usual, the truth is probably somewhere between the two extremes. When we reconcile the dual bogeymen of Obama as “communist abortionist druggie uber-liberal” and Obama as “subtle authoritarian fascist,” we’re left with Obama the careful, pragmatic politician.
And when we abandon the silly notion that one man runs the government, we can recognize the glacial pace of change in a bureaucracy… especially when the previous administration still has hold-overs in place who are antagonistic to the new president’s policies.
http://www.minnpost.com/ericblackblog/2009/04/01/7800/seymour_hersh_cheney_left_allies_behind_in_national_security_posts_and_may_still_influence_events
——-
P.S. Sunflower pipes got away with making “bold statements without backing any of them up” because all the numbers they referenced there can be verified in the links and video I provided. Why on earth would I “hold someone accountable” who just repeated the same facts I gathered during my research?
Besides, they’re just posting to get in a link for their website, and at this point I’ll take all the comments I can get. That being said, if you care to call people out on their statements due to lack of references, I suggest you provide some proof to the contrary.
Posted on April 8th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
obama is a smug little turd.. he is an indignant tool… he thinks it’s funny that over 800,000 Americans are arrested annually for simple pot possesion?… He thinks the escalating drug cartel violance of a black market is funny? He thinks good citizens being incarcerated, losing their freedom and property is funny?
Meanwhile he is putting his face in King Abdullah’s crotch. Obama better wake up fast, he is still in a window of slack because he is the new guy, but if he doesn’t shape up he is going to be at the center of serious civil distress. There is going to be allot of angry carry over from the previous administrations corruption that he will have to deal with.
Posted on April 10th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
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