Pubdate: Thu, 02 Apr 2009
Source: Athens Banner-Herald (GA)
Copyright: 2009 Athens Newspapers Inc
Contact:  http://www.onlineathens.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1535
Author: Clarence Page
Note: Clarence Page, a two-time Pulitizer Prize winner, is a Chicago 
Tribune columnist and editorial board member.
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 SHOULD GET ROLLING ON SENSIBLE MARIJUANA

For all of the keen intellect 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 such pro-pot politicians as 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom