Pubdate: Mon, 01 Apr 2013
Source: Lincoln Journal Star (NE)
Copyright: 2013 Lincoln Journal Star
Contact:  http://www.journalstar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/561
Author: Clarence Page

OBAMA SHOULD LISTEN TO RAND PAUL: LEGALIZE POT

As the nation's capital prepares to open its first legal medicinal
marijuana dispensary and Sen. Rand Paul's call for legalization basks
in bipartisan praise, it's time for President Barack Obama to clear
the air around his own passive-aggressive position on pot.

Until now, Obama has been remarkably adept at taking positions that
seemed to be ahead of their time -- and getting ahead of them.

For example, when he declared his full support for the right of
same-sex couples to marry, there were fears among his supporters that
he would lose important votes before his re-election campaign,
particularly among black churchgoers. Those fears proved to be
exaggerated.

But four years after his Justice Department announced that the feds no
longer will crack down on medicinal marijuana sellers who follow state
laws, the president's pot position continues to be dangerously vague
and confusing.

In California, where voters approved medicinal use back in 1996, the
law was so vaguely worded that about 1,000 dispensaries mushroomed up
in Los Angeles County alone. Yet busts continued, partly over disputes
as to whether the law allowed only nonprofit businesses.

At the other extreme, November ballots in Colorado and Washington
state legalized marijuana for recreational use, and the District of
Columbia's first dispensary, Capital City Care, has its website up and
plans to open in April.

And, on another front, Paul, a famously libertarian Kentucky
Republican, has introduced a bill with Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick
Leahy to restore greater flexibility to judges than currently is
allowed by mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes.

In a recent interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace that even Think
Progress praised as "uncharacteristically sensible," the
left-progressive website's equivalent of a four-star review for the
Kentucky conservative, Paul got to the heart of the current tragedy:
ruined lives.

"Our prisons are full of nonviolent criminals," Paul said. "I don't
want to encourage people to do it. I think even marijuana is a bad
thing to do. ... But I also don't want to put people in jail who make
a mistake."

He spoke forcefully of the many young nonviolent offenders as has
Obama, who has written about his teen drug indiscretions, and possibly
former President George W. Bush, who politely has refused to confirm
or deny what manner of drug use might have accompanied alcohol during
the years before he found sobriety.

"Look, the last two presidents could conceivably have been put in jail
for their drug use and I really think, you know, look what would have
happened," he said. "They got lucky, but a lot of poor kids,
particularly in the inner city, they don't get lucky, they don't have
good attorneys, and they go to jail for these things, and I think it's
a big mistake."

On that note regarding nonviolent drug offenders, Paul strikes a nerve
with me and numerous other African-Americans and civil rights advocates.
As Michelle Alexander, an Ohio State University associate professor of
law, writes in her best-seller "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in
the Age of Colorblindness," statistics show a majority of
African-American men in major urban areas to be in jail, on probation,
otherwise "under correctional control" or "saddled with criminal records
for the rest of their lives."

The result is a new form of second-class citizenship that traps them
in "a parallel social universe, denied basic civil and human rights."
That includes the right to vote, to serve on juries and to be free of
legal discrimination in employment, housing, access to education and
other public benefits.

And the financial cost on top of the social cost of the failed "war on
drugs" has caused such big conservative names as anti-tax lobbyist
Grover Norquist, former Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Attorney
General Edwin Meese to join others in Right On Crime. That nonpartisan
effort is aimed at promoting less costly and more productive
alternatives to incarceration, such as drug treatment and community
service for nonviolent offenders.

With the trends moving in such a productive direction, I'm hardly
alone in wondering what Obama is waiting for. As with the issue of
same-sex marriage, his support could get ahead of the trend and help
move it along. He can even claim it was his idea all along.
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MAP posted-by: Matt