Pubdate: Thu, 20 Dec 2012
Source: Tucson Weekly (AZ)
Copyright: 2012 Tucson Weekly
Contact:  http://www.tucsonweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/462
Author: J. M. Smith

WHAT NOW, OBAMA?

The President Talks A Nice Game About Marijuana, But
That Doesn't Mean Much

As the presidential election was unfolding, and it started to look
like an Obama victory, cannabis advocates across the nation started
wondering what the Choomer in Chief would do about the drug. It was
looking like voters would make it legal for recreational use in
Colorado and Washington and maybe Oregon, too.

President Obama had offered a few hints about how he feels, never
advocating full legalization or even directly backing the medical
paradigm, but saying he thinks the Department of Justice should
consider it a low priority to bust medical-marijuana establishments in
states where it's legal. It was a weak endorsement, of sorts. Some
thought his post-election lame-duck status would allow him the freedom
to revert to his high school days and come out for legalization. Then
on Election Day, all hell broke loose when voters (the smart ones,
anyway) gave the nod to recreational use in Washington and Colorado,
prompting my daughter to say on Facebook, "Everyone is going to move
to Colorado now and the current residents are going to be like 'wut is
going on' and it's going to be a huge mess." I don't know how many
people are planning to move, but I do think a huge mess is developing.

The president kinda sorta weighed in on the issue last week, when he
told ABC News that we need a conversation about how to deal with the
situation. He didn't come out for legalization, but he offered yet
another hint that he thinks the federal government should back off.

"It does not make sense from a prioritization point of view for us to
focus on recreational drug-users in a state that has already said that
under state law, that's legal. At this point (in) Washington and
Colorado, you've seen the voters speak on this issue. And, as it is,
the federal government has a lot to do when it comes to criminal
prosecutions," Obama told ABC, adding that he won't go so far as to
say pot should be legal and doesn't want to encourage drug use.

Well, that all sounds great, but it solves exactly nothing and moves
the discussion forward exactly zero inches. It's pretty much the same
thing the president said about medical marijuana a couple of years
ago. Since then, Attorney General Eric Holder and his Department of
Justice have made it a priority to bust numerous medical-marijuana
dispensaries in several states and put one Montana dispensary operator
behind bars and facing a 90-plus-year mandatory federal prison
sentence (not a typo).

So I have some questions about what Obama's soft language means,
exactly. There will almost certainly be busts in Colorado and
Washington despite the low priority of marijuana. Making it a low
priority doesn't mean looking the other way, and it shouldn't. I'm not
against busting dispensaries or recreational users when they
flagrantly break the law. I'm OK with not selling cannabis near
schools and keeping it low-key, under the radar. But I think we need
more than a conversation. We need a decision, a change in federal law.

Ultimately, Obama won't have to make a decision unless he wants to. He
can continue to pass the buck, to kick the can down the road to the
next president (Hillary?), who could then kick it to the next
president, and so on. But eventually, the public is going to stomp on
the can, flattening it so it can't be kicked anymore. People will
demand a decision.

When that happens, the can will stop in the road, and President Obama
will be able to smoke out in retirement the way he did in high school.
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D