Pubdate: Thu, 02 Apr 2009
Source: Dickinson Press, The (ND)
Copyright: 2009 The Dickinson Press
Contact:  http://www.thedickinsonpress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2592
Author: Clarence Page
Bookmark: http://mapinc.org/people/Charles+Lynch
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

OBAMA HAS A HAZY POT POLICY

For all of the keen intellect that President Obama  showed in his 
online town-hall meeting, he didn't seem  to know much about reefer economics.

When asked whether legalizing marijuana might be a  stimulus for the 
economy and job creation, he played  the question for laughs.

"I don't know what this says about the online  audience," he quipped 
as his studio audience chuckled  and groaned. "But ... this was a 
fairly popular  question. We want to make sure that it was answered," he said.

Sure. So you could knock it."The answer is, no, I don't  think that 
is a good strategy to grow our economy."

No stimulus? Hey, more than a few blinged-out,  Escalade-driving pot 
dealers would dispute that notion.  You want "green" industry? Free 
the weed, dude.

Such is the call of pro-pot politicians like California  Assemblyman 
Tom Ammiano, who has proposed to legalize  the weed, tax it and 
regulate it like booze. He  estimates the move would generate $1 
billion in revenue  for the state's troubled budget and save $150 
million  in enforcement costs.

It's hard to argue with Ammiano's logic, but it's easy  to make light 
of lighting up. Marijuana is, after all,  funny. Few subjects inspire 
more bad puns from headline  writers than those that, well, step on 
grass. A quick  sample:

"Obama: Nope to dope." (Russia Today)

"Obama's Marijuana Buzz Kill." (The Daily Beast online)

"Marijuana issue suddenly smoking hot." (Politico)

Like sex and sobriety, marijuana is funny because it is  surrounded 
by so much hypocrisy. So is politics.

To listen to Obama's chortles, for example, you'd never  guess that 
he is our third president in a row to have  admitted to using 
marijuana back in his years of  youthful indiscretion.

Bill Clinton says he tried it but "didn't inhale." Oh,  sure. George 
W. Bush admitted to early pot use in a  taped interview with a 
friend, but refuses to discuss  it in public. Obama described his own 
teen drug use in  poignant detail in his first memoir, but like 
countless other boomer dads now shies shyly away from the  subject.

Yet you would not guess from his snarky town-hall  attitude that only 
a week earlier his Attorney General  Eric Holder announced that the 
federal Drug Enforcement  Administration would stop raiding and 
arresting users  or dispensers of medicinal marijuana unless they 
violated both state law and federal law.

That means you, California, and a dozen other states  that allow 
marijuana sales and possession for medicinal  purposes with a 
doctor's recommendation.

Holder sensibly announced that DEA resources are too  valuable in the 
war against dangerous drug lords to be  raiding residents who 
otherwise are in compliance with  state and local laws and standards. 
That would reverse  the Bush administration's ridiculous 
scorched-earth  pursuit that ignored the right of states to govern 
themselves in such matters.

Yet convenient inconsistency is not limited to any one  party or 
administration. A week after Holder's notice  -- and the day before 
Obama laughed off the notion of  legal reefers -- DEA agents raided 
Emmalyn's California  Cannabis Clinic, a licensed medical marijuana 
collective in San Francisco.

DEA spokesmen claimed that Emmalyn's had violated local  as well as 
federal law, but they didn't say how. Local  officials said they 
didn't have a clue what the DEA was  talking about.

Not laughing is Charles Lynch, a celebrated cause since  his Morro 
Bay, Calif., medical marijuana dispensary was  raided by the DEA in 
2007. Two days before Obama's town  hall, a federal judge postponed 
Lynch's sentencing to  await clarification of Team Obama's new 
hands-off  approach.

Lynch, who has no criminal record and was welcomed by  the local 
mayor and business community, should be set  free. Instead he's in 
legal limbo, with both sides  trying to make him a test case for 
their competing  crusades.

Also not laughing are lawmakers in at least 10 states,  including 
Obama's home state of Illinois, who are  debating whether and how 
they might join the 13 states  where medical marijuana is legal.

If he really cares, Obama could end this reefer madness  in much the 
same way that Franklin Roosevelt ended the  disastrous run of liquor 
prohibition in 1933.  Prohibition had to go. It was too costly to 
enforce. It  demoralized a public already beaten down by the 
Depression. It wasted a potential tax revenue-producing  commodity by 
intruding unnecessarily into private lives  of otherwise law-abiding 
Americans. Sounds familiar.

Unlike Roosevelt, President Obama does not have to  amend the 
Constitution to end our current marijuana  confusion. He only has to 
get out of the way and allow  the states to enforce their own drug 
laws. That's not a  laughable notion. It's only sensible.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom