Pubdate: Tue, 24 Mar 2015
Source: Day, The (New London,CT)
Copyright: 2015 The Day Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.theday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/293
Author: Froma Harop, Creators Syndicate

TINY STEPS TOWARD PRAGMATIC POT POLICIES

Give thanks for the little things, they say. A bill that would stop 
the feds from going after medical marijuana users in states that 
permit such activity is something for which we should give thanks. 
But it is little.

Let's not criticize the sponsoring senators - Rand Paul, R-Ky., 
Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Cory Booker, D-N.J. - for such a 
small reprieve from the war on drugs. They've probably gone about as 
far as they could within the two-faced confines of our national politics.

If the measure becomes law, federal authorities could continue 
harassing and arresting patients, dispensaries, cultivators and banks 
serving the business in states that don't allow medical marijuana.

And what about Colorado, Washington and Oregon, states that have 
legalized marijuana for recreational purposes? Their nonmedical pot 
users are still disobeying federal laws. The Obama administration is 
pretty much leaving them alone, but that's just a matter of current 
policy, Sean Dunagan, a former intelligence analyst at the federal 
Drug Enforcement Agency, told me.

"That could change with a different administration, with a different 
attorney general," he said.

Dunagan is a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, former 
law officers backing legalization of all drugs. They welcome such 
halfhearted reforms, but argue that they do not break the violent 
cartels that our drug laws keep in business. And they preserve our 
two-tiered system of justice, which ruins the lives of little people 
and lets the well-connected off the hook.

Speaking of which, Jeb Bush admits to having smoked pot in high 
school. Actually, Bush's dorm room at Phillips Academy Andover 
reportedly served as stoner central, where students would smoke hash 
to the strains of Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride."

Kids from modest backgrounds were being jailed at that time for doing 
far less. Today, even a minor drug conviction bars one from many 
jobs, including joining the military.

Yet Florida's former Republican governor evidently doesn't think his 
illegal behavior should disqualify him from serving as commander in 
chief. Why would he? The current holder of that job, President Barack 
Obama, also admitted to smoking pot, as did his predecessor, Jeb's 
brother George W. Bush.

If Jeb owned up to the rank injustice and fully supported ending the 
war on marijuana, that might lighten the hypocrisy factor. But Bush 
piously insists that he's against legalizing marijuana. If states 
want to do it, that's OK, he says. But that leaves the vast majority 
of Americans subject to arrest for smoking a joint after dinner.

Here's an idea. Why doesn't Bush volunteer to do the time behind bars 
that youths from less powerful families were being sentenced to in 
the 1960s? He could share a cell with Patrick Kennedy, the former 
liberal congressman from Rhode Island.

In the wee hours of May 4, 2006, Rep. Kennedy crashed his car into a 
barricade on Capitol Hill while under the influence of who knows how 
many controlled substances. He served in Congress for four more 
years, leaving at a time of his choosing.

Kennedy is now a staunch foe of legalizing marijuana, but, like Bush, 
has not offered to do his time. Given Kennedy's decades of addiction, 
that would be no small piece of change.

Many argue that marijuana at high potency and in great quantity can 
be harmful. That may be so, but the same is true of many things we 
can legally consume.

If states rights is the excuse for easing up on the ludicrous drug 
war, so be it. Any change that makes life less miserable for good 
people - and saves the taxpayers huge sums - is to be cheered. But oh the waste!
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom