Pubdate: Tue, 03 Jul 2012
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Copyright: 2012 PG Publishing Co., Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/pm4R4dI4
Website: http://www.post-gazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/341
Author: Tony Norman

OBAMA'S OVERDUE TO EASE UP ON DRUG WAR

As intelligent as he may be, President Barack Obama is also a 
creature of habit. He will not hesitate to embrace progressive 
positions he has drifted away from, especially as an election looms. 
That always has been his modus operandi.

Last year, various Democratic constituencies began publicly grumbling 
about Mr. Obama's lack of progress on legislation and actions he 
promised as a candidate. There was talk about a growing enthusiasm 
gap, especially among young people and recent college graduates 
burned by the economic downturn.

The LGBT community announced it would withhold financial support for 
his re-election if he didn't "evolve" faster in embracing marriage 
equality and other issues. This year, sensing a diminution of support 
in that community, he did.

Last year, Mr. Obama deported more illegal immigrants to Central and 
South America than any of his Oval Office predecessors, an irony 
Republicans shamelessly vowed to exploit.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Obama inoculated himself against charges he was 
breaking up families by ordering immigration to back off deporting 
law-abiding children of these undocumented immigrants for now. He 
also reiterated his support for the Dream Act. It didn't shock anyone 
that his support among Hispanics, already higher than Mitt Romney's, 
shot through the stratosphere.

Still, it isn't likely Mr. Obama will ever be able to make good on 
his promise to close the military's prison at Guantanamo Bay as long 
as Congress is divided. His record on civil liberties is, arguably, 
as bad as President George W. Bush's was.

On the other hand, African-Americans, Mr. Obama's most loyal 
constituents, understand that he needs us to move to the back of the 
bus without too much complaining for now, lest suspicious white folks 
mistake his occasional lip service on our behalf for substantive action.

An issue that would have an immediate and positive effect on the 
quality of life in many African-American communities is a more 
rational approach to the drug war.

Marc Ambinder, in an article for GQ, reports that Mr. Obama is 
planning to back away from a set of stupid and mindless strategies 
that have been in place since the Nixon administration.

"According to ongoing discussions with the Obama aides and 
associates," Mr. Ambinder writes, "if the president wins a second 
term, he plans to tackle another American war that has so far been 
successful only in perpetuating more misery: the four decades of the Drug War."

So far this fits the pattern. To its shame, the Obama administration 
has been more zealous than previous administrations in militarizing 
the Drug War. Mr. Obama also has cracked down more aggressively on 
medical marijuana use and unleashed the Department of Justice on 
licensed pot distilleries in states with more liberal pot laws than 
the federal government approves.

Despite a pattern of appeasing valued constituencies, Mr. Obama is 
signaling that he won't ease up on the Drug War until his second 
term. If he loses, don't expect Mr. Romney, a man who would take us 
back to the 1950s in every way, to bring anything approaching a 
nuanced understanding to this issue.

"And pot smokers shouldn't expect the president to come out in favor 
of legalizing marijuana," Mr. Ambinder cautions. "But from his days 
as a state senator in Illinois, Obama has considered the Drug War to 
be a failure, a conflict that has exacerbated the problem of drug 
abuse, devastated entire communities, changed policing practices for 
the worse, and has led to a generation of young children, 
disproportionately black and minority, to grow up in dislocated 
homes, or in none at all."

There's no accounting for the monumental hypocrisy that has allowed 
the Drug War to continue unabated under a president who knows better, 
especially since it is the biggest cause of the high incarceration 
rate of black men. As an admitted recreational drug user in his 
youth, Mr. Obama is uniquely qualified to speak to this issue with 
some clarity and moral authority.

Unfortunately, his fear that voters would be persuaded against any 
more enlightened policy by hysterical propaganda out of the Romney 
camp has caused him to underestimate his advantage. Even if he 
follows through and does the right thing in a second term, his 
cynical dodge will always be seen for what it is - something less 
than a profile in courage.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom