Pubdate: Sat, 04 Apr 2009
Source: Pocono Record, The (Stroudsburg, PA)
Copyright: 2009 Pocono Record
Contact:
http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/misc?url=/static/forms/letter_form.htm
Website: http://www.poconorecord.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4529
Author: Clarence Page
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/barack+obama

OBAMA MUST CHANGE 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 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 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 currently  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: Larry Seguin