Pubdate: Sun, 16 Sep 2012
Source: Metrowest Daily News (MA)
Copyright: 2012 MetroWest Daily News
Contact:  http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/619
Author: Richard M. Evans

THE GREEN GORILLA IN OUR POLITICS

As President Obama and Gov. Romney scramble for support, both
candidates shrink from reaching out to an emerging body of voters
whose support could spell the difference between victory and defeat in
November. Call it anything but the stoner vote.

Consider:

*  In 2008, Massachusetts voters faced a decriminalization ballot
question and Michigan voters had the opportunity to enact medical
marijuana. Both passed handily, with pot getting more votes than
Barrack Obama.

*  In California's 2010 contest for attorney general, voters had a
choice between Kamela Harris, who supported the state's medical
marijuana laws, and Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley,
who vigorously opposed them. Harris won.

*   In May of this year, Oregon democrats similarly had a choice
between two qualified candidates for state attorney general,
distinguishable only by their positions on medical marijuana. The
supporter, Ellen Rosenblum, beat the opponent, Dwight Holton.

*   In this year's Texas Democratic primary, an eight-term
congressman, Silvestre Reyes, suffered a stinging defeat
(notwithstanding personal assistance from Bill Clinton) by a young
city councilor, Robert O'Rourke, who recognizes prohibition as the
lifeblood of violent cartels and urges its reconsideration.

Who are these voters who pass such initiatives and elect such
candidates? They can't be stoners, as marijuana consumers comprise
only around 11 percent of the adult population.

Here's my guess.

These are voters who don't smoke pot, but they don't think that
people who do should be arrested for it. They don't see why the
industry can't be regulated, taxed and controlled like other
commodities. They're tired of government propaganda that conflates
use and abuse. They are aghast at the level of brutality with which
the marijuana laws are sometimes enforced (Google "swat raid
marijuana"), and are dismayed that "narcotics enforcement" has
succeeded the Jim Crow laws as our nation's principal instrument of
racial oppression, as described by Michelle Alexander in her
monumental work, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of
Colorblindness."

These voters don't smoke pot, but they're OK with people who do. Call
them pot-tolerant, or "Tols," but don't expect to hear from them
publicly. They know better than to speak honestly with pollsters or
other strangers about marijuana, don't join advocacy groups and they
would never send a letter to the editor. To criticize prohibition
publicly might put at risk their jobs, their housing, their property
or maybe even the custody of their children. However, when they step
into voting booth and pull the curtain tight, they are vocal indeed.
It is their one opportunity to speak honestly on this subject, without
fear of exposure or reprisal.

So far in this campaign, both President Obama and Governor Romney have
accomplished what nearly every politician wants when it comes to
marijuana: to change the subject. Mr. Obama deflects the subject with
ridicule, and Mr. Romney with irritation -- as, when asked about
medical marijuana, he snapped at the interviewer for not asking about
jobs, unaware, apparently, that in the small state of Montana alone,
medical marijuana created 1,400 new jobs. (Extrapolate, Governor.)

Unfortunately, they get away with it. Neither candidate has been
forced to defend his support for prohibition, or to project how many
more people will have to be arrested, prosecuted and punished in order
to achieve "victory" in the war on pot, however he defines it. Neither
has been asked whether he respects the right of states to protect
patients and doctors, and the providers of medical marijuana, from
arrest and punishment. No interviewer has pressed as to why states
should not have the right to tax and regulate the marijuana industry
within their borders.

Change is coming, as voters exercise leadership abdicated by
politicians. A splendid federal-state showdown will be triggered in
November if the voters of Oregon, Washington or Colorado approve full
legalization initiatives on their ballots, yet marijuana remains the
big green gorilla in the room that each candidate pretends not to
notice, perhaps at his peril.
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MAP posted-by: Matt