“Obama: From First to Worst on Medical Marijuana”

The title of this post is the headline of this commentary now appearing at the Huffington Post, which is authored by Rob Kampia, the Executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project.  Here are excerpts: 

During his run for the presidency, Barack Obama instilled hope in medical marijuana supporters by pledging to respect state laws on the matter.  And for the first two years of his term, he was generally faithful to his promise.  Yet suddenly, and with no logical explanation, over the past eight months he has become arguably the worst president in U.S. history regarding medical marijuana….

This past spring, Obama’s U.S. attorneys in Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Montana, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington state issued letters to local and state government officials at carefully chosen times, for the purpose of killing medical marijuana reform measures or hampering implementation in each state….

On September 21, Obama’s ATF issued an open letter saying that gun shops cannot sell guns to medical marijuana patients — or people who are known to be addicted to drugs other than alcohol or tobacco, ironically enough….

But there may be a way forward through this mess: Since Colorado, Maine, and New Mexico set up state-licensing systems for medical marijuana businesses in recent years, literally zero such businesses in these three states have been raided by the feds.

(All the raids we hear about — in California, Michigan, Montana, and Washington state — do not involve any state-licensed businesses.  At best, some of the targeted businesses were licensed by local governments in California under a loosely worded provision of California state law.)

Technically, federal prosecutors can civilly or criminally target any marijuana businesses they want — in any state — until we change federal law. But, for the time being, the feds appear not to be targeting medical marijuana businesses with state licenses.

It’s worth noting that my organization has successfully enacted new laws that include state licensing in Arizona, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Vermont over the last two years.  (And D.C. and New Jersey have licensing systems, too.)

So we may have a way forward.  Unfortunately, the plan now assumes hostility from the former marijuana user in the White House who used to profess notions of hope, change, and compassion toward the less fortunate.  Shame on him.

This commentary reinforces my sense that the shrewd Republican 2012 candidate could get lots of (politically valuable) attention by just raising provocative questions about these latest anti-gun and anti-state moves by the Obama Justice Department in this area.  Such questions need not (yet) be in the form of a wholesale challenge to the war on drugs as articulated by Representative Ron Paul, but they could involve expressions of doubt about the focus on DOJ on these matters while violent crime rates continue to drop and economic frauds of all sorts continue to be of greater concern to the American people.

Of course, as detailed in this post from last year, House Republicans like Judiciary Committee Chair Lamar Smith have been giving the Obama Administration (seemingly unjustified) grief about being soft on the drug war.  I suspect and fear that the latest Obama DOJ surge in the war on pot has been prompted by these big-criminal-justice-government Republican criticism.  In turn, I suspect and fear that even those eager to brandish an outsider reputation among the GOP candidates will have the guts to attack this facet of big government under the Obama Administration.  But, until a GOP candidate other than Ron Paul questions the big-government drug war, I will be persistently suspicious of anyone who asserts they truly support a smaller federal government across the board.

Some recent and older related posts on the modern politics of the drug war:

• “Bummer: Barack Obama turns out to be just another drug warrior”
• Top House Republican complaining that Obama administration is not fighting drug war hard enough
• Is the time right for candidate Ron Paul to lead withdrawal from the “war on drugs”?
• New poll reports that large majority of Americans consider “War on Drugs” a failure
• Effective commentary concerning political discussion of pot policy and the drug war
• Newt Gingrich says “criminal justice system is broken, and conservatives must lead the way in fixing it”
• A list of themes for stopping drug war “madness”
• When and how will state GOP leaders start cutting expensive criminal justice programming?
• Can GOP “Pledge to America” be read to suggest drawing down federal involvement in the drug war?
• Green tea party: will Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin or other professed liberty lovers support ending pot prohibition in California?
• What does the tea party movement have to say about taxing and spending on the death penalty, the drug war and mass incarceration?