As states legalize pot, will Obama continue the federal War on Weed?

http://twitter.com/trempls tré

Why did anyone think otherwise? I think in the coming years, we’re gonna see the federal government give in on LG marriage as state legalization surpasses half the country, and 5-10 years after that we’ll see the same with cannabis.

Paul Renault

I suspect that this will be one of the few cases where Betteridge’s Law won’t apply.

millie fink

I agree, sadly.

(For those, like me, who don’t know what B’s Law is –

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines

CLamb

The President has an obligation to enforce the laws made by Congress regardless of his personal opinion–that’s democracy. Personally, I don’t believe the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the authority to interfere in intrastate commerce but the courts disagree.

dragonfrog

Isn’t that how alcohol prohibition went away? I had understood that New York state basically legalized alcohol despite the federal ban, then the feds blinked – admitting they didn’t have the budget to enforce it without state support – and the rest of the US got to observe NY reap the benefits of repeal.
- http://twitter.com/InnerPartisan Sebastian Spinczyk
  
  Hmm, really? Wasn’t prohibition repealed with its’ own amendment?
  - SKR
    
    a bunch of states legalized alcohol before the amendment happened.
    - http://twitter.com/InnerPartisan Sebastian Spinczyk
      
      Interesting…. gotta research this! :D
- AnthonyC
  
  A constitutional amendment is not a congressional law. Because Prohibition was an amendment, that would make the NY law (I’m assuming you’re right on the historical details, IDK) would have been unenforceable. Just like the states rights folks in the South half a century before.
C W

“The President has an obligation to enforce the laws made by Congress ”

Actually he can decline to enforce law, if he so wishes.
- http://goodsharer.com/ Aloisius
  
  The President takes an oath to faithfully execute the laws of the United States. In order to decline to enforce the law, the President has to come up with an argument as to why it is unconstitutional and therefore unenforceable.
  - L_Mariachi
    
    There is still the concept of prosecutorial discretion. Any police chief or district attorney who decided to expend his department’s budget on chasing down jaywalkers in lieu of dealing with a rampant epidemic of homicides would be out on his ass in short order, or at the very least called onto the carpet for a stern talking-to.
    
    Unfortunately, there’s no carpet for the President to be called onto, and we voters whom he’s supposed to be accountable to didn’t have any say in the matter since the only viable alternative would have been even worse.
  - grant11
    
    Ha! And there’s no better judge of constitutionality than the guy who executes Americans without trial.
- AnthonyC
  
  At the very least, since the laws as written are unenforcable anyway (based on marijuana usage statistics alone there should be at least 30 million people in jail in the US) so the president has no choice but to prioritize enforcing some laws over others.
- donovan acree
  
  All he needs to do is have the drug re-classified to a lower schedule. No laws need be changed. Once it is no longer a controlled substance, the DEA would have no choice but to stop arresting pot smokers.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RE32MRNKBNPZLLODRBIYAR7UBQ Jim

The president has the power to reschedule cannabis on his own, without Congress. Obama could end the War on Weed all by himself, if he wanted to.

He doesn’t appear to want to.
- ocker3
  
  ”Soft on Drugs”!!!!!
  - PathogenAntifreeze
    
    Indeed; if we’re lucky, that was his main reason for continuing and increasing the nonsense during his first term, but he has no re-election to worry about anymore.
  - L_Mariachi
    
    There’s an easy counter to that: Make those critics say out loud that they want him to be “hard on drugs,” and then crack a Viagra joke.
    
    get it, hard-on drugs, see what I did there
    - Felton / Moderator
      
      What, nobody else thought this was funny? Bunch of stiffs.
  - lafave
    
    since he isn’t running for re-election, that doesn’t appear to be a viable disencentive.
- GregS
  
  Of course he doesn’t want to. If had he wanted to end it, he wouldn’t have picked the most enthusiastic supporter of the war on drugs in the Democratic party as his vice president.
aikimoe

This is simply false. The President has already stopped enforcing and defending DOMA and he could, with a single order, reschedule marijuana so that it isn’t considered as dangerous as cocaine and heroin.

It’s a fact that every President for at least the last 50 years has selectively enforced laws and broken laws with impunity, so I think it’s well within Obama’s power to ignore Washington’s and Colorado’s experiments in sanity, instead of attacking them.
electronicnonsense

I think Obama’s stance on legalization is solidly against, as he stated at the Summit Of The Americas when several central American countries expressed interest in legalization in an effort to curb drastic problems with organized crime networks. He made it clear, in contrast to the majority opinion at the summit, that he didn’t think legalization was the answer and that he was opposed to it.
pacificwaters

Oh please. He has shown what he thinks of our laws. He ignores them whenever he likes. The list is too long to list here but look it up.

fenester

The government always seems to find a way to argue that a particular law or behavior affects interstate commerce when they have a will to do so. Sometimes it’s not much of a stretch, and we may agree with it (e.g. racial discrimination at restaurants and lodging). Here the government could argue that “legal” cannabis will leave the state of origin and negatively affect other states in the union.

On another tangent…
In this case I could see some people comparing the federal government’s response to state laws regarding same-sex marriage, abortion, immigration, etc., to their response to these new state laws legalizing cannabis. And perhaps the white house is feeling some pressure because of that. But I think the big difference is that those other state laws are restricting the rights of citizens of the U.S. while the new cannabis laws are expanding citizens’ rights. I think if this administration had the will to do so, they could easily craft a policy that upheld the (in my opinion, wrong-minded) federal drug policy and laws while respecting the will of the states. The issue of federal taxes and cannabis dispensaries which has been used in California to justify the closing of many dispensaries does seem to be a sticky spot though.

Also, Obummer.

http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi

The Top 10 Marijuana Myths and Facts which is linked to in the Rolling Stone article is also an accurate and balanced read.

Also this video is an excellent example of a common sense approach from a police department that clearly has its head screwed on (at least for this matter, I know nothing about the reputation of the SPD).

$6143719

Why should Obama fight it, it’s not like he has to worry about re-election. Even Clinton recently admitted it was a failure. As more states approve it hopefully taxpayers see it as a waste of money fighting something that’s even less dangerous then caffein.

http://twitter.com/InnerPartisan Sebastian Spinczyk

Obama doesn’t, but Democrats do.

However… seeing how the GOP is pretty much on a steady decline vis-a-vis demographics *and* seeing how pro-legalization is approaching 50% public opinion… maybe there’s hope.
- C W
  
  Also that the GOP’s demographic is trending pro-marijuana.

http://twitter.com/Brainspore Tim Harrington

The good news is that DEA alone doesn’t have the resources to wage the war on drugs if state and local agencies choose not to assist. (At least not to the same extent.)

hal14450

They do actually, especially in states that have decriminalized marijuana or legalized medical marijuana. It’s low hanging fruit and the DEA will always find some state or local agencies that are willing to share credit which pads statistics. It’s a win-win for them because it helps justify budgets.
- John Smith
  
  That’s a hard one to hit the “like” for, but all the agencies around here will eagerly take DEA money and we supposedly have legal medical marijuana.
- dragonfrog
  
  Decriminalized & legalized aren’t the same things. Medical and recreational aren’t the same things. Just possession and everything from personal gardens to state-licensed sale and agriculture aren’t the same thing.
  
  The DEA can afford to pick on dealers and grow ops in states where personal possession is just a ticket or community service hours. The DEA can afford to raid medical dispensaries where the state is suppressing the grow ops and dealer networks where the other 95% of the population gets their supply.
  
  The DEA has not yet had to face the challenge of being the only enforcer of the entire criminalization of pot.
- L_Mariachi
  
  State and local laws can be passed forbidding the LEOs under their purview from cooperating with Federal enforcement efforts. IIRC, San Francisco did something like that a few years ago in regards to ICE immigration crackdowns.
  - elix
    
    It’s not exactly the same system because Canada, but that’s something that marijuana proponents are trying to do in BC for the 2014 provincial election: Put a provincial referendum vote to basically force police in BC to put simple marijuana possession at the absolute bottom of their priority list and to expend no resources chasing it.
    
    Of course, that conflicts with federal perogative, so it’ll need to be sorted out with the federal government (which is also part of the proposed act’s details).

gellfex

Given that huge numbers of Americans under 70 or so have smoked or still smoke weed, from the last 3 presidents to “masters of the Universe” on Wall Street, who is telling their congressmen that we need to fight this one to the death? I just don’t get it. I have a teen & tween, and I tell them the reason they shouldn’t smoke weed is the same as why they’re not ready to drink responsibly. Anything else is hypocrisy, but hypocrisy & Congress seem a package deal these days.

http://www.facebook.com/dpease Dave Pease

totally agree… whoever’s smart enough to embrace reality on this first is going to be supported a lot more than the establishment thinks imo.

also, Xeni, its Tim Dickinson, not Tom.
class_enemy

who is telling their congressmen that we need to fight this one to the death?

State and local police departments, prosecuting attorneys, prison administrators, and those who sell supplies and services to them all.

Budgets are driven by the size of the mission, as we all understand…..
- John Smith
  
  Also prison unions, liquor companies and drug cartels.
  - smallteam
    
    The Aristocrats?!
http://twitter.com/InnerPartisan Sebastian Spinczyk

I guess it’s a special sort of schizophrenia… perhaps related to the one that so many closeted homosexuals in the high ranks of fundamentalist Christianity suffer from.

Those who’ve got something to hide yell the loudest, or so it seems.
EH

who is telling their congressmen that we need to fight this one to the death?

Law enforcement, I imagine, who are facing the lowest crime rates in decades. Massive police layoffs are on the horizon, and they don’t like it. Not. One. Bit.

hal14450

I don’t think Obama is the problem. In theory the administrations policy has been not to go after people that aren’t breaking state laws but in practice the DEA doesn’t follow that edict. I can think of a few reasons why the DEA doesn’t do so:

* It undermines their mission in the ‘war on drugs’, this ‘war’ can’t ever be won of course but nevertheless it’s full speed ahead. So push back from those in charge is inevitable due to people wanting to keep their jobs.

* It can and will have an adverse effect on several agencies budgets that are tasked with enforcing federal law. That is to say they need to appear to make progress to justify their budgets.

* Given the above rationale why wouldn’t they go after the low hanging fruit? This puts the political hot potato back in the hands of the Obama administration.

So until Congress decriminalizes the use, possession, and sale of marijuana you can expect to see more of the same from the alphabet agencies as well state/local agencies so that can pad their statistics to justify budgets. I can’t recall of a single instance where an agency went before Congress to ask for less resources to curb waste can you? Just look at what happened to David Nutt in the UK for his crimes of taking a sane position on updating drug policies.

http://twitter.com/InnerPartisan Sebastian Spinczyk

Ceterum censeo: Annihilate the DEA, and integrate all that remains into the ATF.

But, yeah – Obama isn’t the problem. In fact, I believe he’s actually pretty much in favour of legalization, considering his, ahem, past activities. The problem is, I’m sure, the Democratic leadership fearing an outcry by the Right Wing hate-machine. “OMG TEH COMMIES WANT TO POISON OUR KIDS!!!11!1″, or something to this effect.
Although, at this point.. why should the Democrats care?
- millie fink
  
  “Drug control” = population control
  
  I’m not so sure that Obama wants to throw away the former as a tool toward the latter.
  - http://twitter.com/InnerPartisan Sebastian Spinczyk
    
    Sure. Seen any black helicopters lately?
    
    Seriously, though: Conspiracy theories like this are what’s wrong with political discourse in the US.
    - millie fink
      
      Chomsky sez (in the same vein as many others) –
      
      The Drug War is an effort to stimulate fear of dangerous people from who we have to protect ourselves. It is also, a direct form of control of what are called “dangerous classes,” those superfluous people who don’t really have a function contributing to profit-making and wealth. They have to be somehow taken care of. . . .
      
      When you call for a War on Drugs, you know exactly who you’re going to pick up: poor black people. You’re not going to pick up rich white people: you don’t go after them anyway. In the upper-middle class suburb where I live, if somebody goes home and sniffs cocaine, police don’t break into their house.
      
      So there are many factors making the Drug War a war against the poor, largely poor people of color.
      
      More here, in case you’re not the sort to dismiss Chomsky from the git-go as a conspiracy nut –
      
      http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199804–.htm
    - http://www.facebook.com/marko.raos Marko Raos
      
      touche!
    - http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi
      
      Oh please, everyone knows Chomsky is just a left-wing conspiracy theory nutjob!
      
      /sarcasm
aikimoe

Obama controls those agencies, not vice versa. Nothing bad would happen to Obama if he acted sanely and liberally in regards to marijuana, and bad things would happen less often to good people.

Obama and his devotion to politics over sane policy is a major part of the problem.
lafave

Obama can fire the head of the DEA and replace her with someone who will listen to him, but since we can’t read his thoughts, we can only assume by his inaction on that regard that he supports the DEA entirely.

fuzzyfuzzyfungus

Surely a coalition of liberals outraged at the DEA, and reactionaries outraged at the black guy in the white house messing with their states’ rights could be arranged…

https://twitter.com/misterjayem MrJM

In Russia, same sex marriage issue for states, but pot smoking federal issue!

/Yakov

No, wait… not in Russia… in Barack Obama’s America.

flickerKuu

So much for voting, now what?

Bangorian

Hey Barry – remember that cash weslipped you during the campaign, when you were in a pinch? Time to pay us back with some reasonable decisions around pot.

PathogenAntifreeze

… said the giant pharmaceutical corporations who donated a lot more than human constituents. :-(

http://www.facebook.com/people/Kirk-Muse/630381207 Kirk Muse

Al Capone and the Alcohol Cartels had several hundred politicians on their payroll. Do you think that the drug cartels don’t also? What kind of politicians do you think the drug cartels have on their payroll? Politicians who want to put the drug cartels out of business via legalization and regulation?

http://www.facebook.com/people/Kirk-Muse/630381207 Kirk Muse

Go to YouTube and search for Judge Jim Gray to see why marijuana remains a criminalized substance.

destroy_all_humans

Well they’ve done an “excellent” job keeping it from me for 18 years. Keep up the good work DEA