Obama On Marijuana, Where’s The Change?
I feel like I should preface this with a disclaimer:
I smoke marijauana about once or twice a year. Usually while camping. That said, I don’t “Smoke Marijuana”: I don’t own a pipe or a bong. I don’t think marijuana culture is particularly cool and I prefer low grade marijuana because I smoked something called “The Mind Eraser” once and it was sorta terrifying. I do have a pack of Zigzags in the drawer in the kitchen. You know, just in case. That said, I don’t really have a horse in this race. If I want to smoke marijuana I can buy it pretty easily here in California and I do it so rarely that I don’t think i’m in any legal danger.I think that Obama and the Democrats, are selling out the Democrat base with their wink and nod views on marijuana (“I inhaled frequently, ha ha”) and then treating the question of whether legalizing marijuana would help the economy at his “Web Townhall” as silly.
And Legalizing marijuana probably would help the economy.
I don’t mean via tax revenues either.
All the potential tax revenues are grossly overstated.
Stoners aren’t good at thinking about things critically. If marijuana became legal it would become a commodity, like corn, and the value would plummet. It’s only valuable because it’s illegal.
There’s two ways I think Marijuana would help the economy:
Post Prohibition Version 2.0
After prohibition ended everyone went out and drank gin and had cocktails because it was new and fun. Of course the cool people were drinking for many years prior to that but it made it ok for the squares to go out and raise a glass.
You’ll notice that music and the arts really exploded after prohibition was repealed. I’m not saying that alcohol made musicians and artists create better work, I just think that money tends to fuel the quality of the arts, and since everyone was out and about getting their drink on, they needed some nice art to look at and something to watch or listen to.
If marijuana were legalized pot bars would spring up everywhere and it’d be the new cool thing to do; you’d see a group of lawyer looking guys with big hair, stoned, and using words like “the chronic” and “kush”.
To Opponents of Legalization: Rather than fight marijuana legally, fight it culturally. When lawyers with big butts and big hair are smoking pot it’s going to become a lot less cool to the kids.
Ellsworth Toohey says in The Fountainhead:
Destroy it from within. Don’t set out to raze all shrines – you’ll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity – and the shrines are razed
Sure a special license should be required to sell marijuana, just like alcohol and tobacco, but that’s about as far as the government’s oversight would go.
Marijuana’s Strain On The Legal and Law Enforcement Systems
The second way legalizing marijuana would improve the economy is by reducing its strain on the legal and law enforcement system down to zero.
Everyone convicted of a marijuana crime will be released from prison, jail or probation.
All law enforcement will stop wasting their time on pot-related crimes.
Sure some existing pot dealers and criminals would make a lot of money for about six months. Then places like Iowa and Nebraska would put them out of business. Those guys out there know how to farm.
Change?
Change would be to pledge to form a small committee of fact-finders, economists and ordinary Americans to investigate the cost-benefit and social impact of Legalizing Marijuana. Anything else is betraying your base. 9 of 10 Democrats I know smoke pot. None of them think that people who grow, smoke, possess or sell pot should go to jail. Why are their leaders so out of touch?
Change was an election slogan and all the changes i’ve seen so far have been nominal and stilted. From the Online Town Hall on down.
I love how “online people” are treated like a minority group by politicians still.
“Oh the internet people are asking about pot. ha ha”.
Every home and office has the internet now. Stop being such idiots.
It’s all the same old thinking and the same politicians and players.
Watch the video of the online town hall if you want:
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Absolutely dead on.
It saddened me to hear the President make light something that, if I am not mistaken, was very highly ranked(possibly top 10).
This was the same president that vowed, “any program that is not working will be terminated.”
My heart rose hoping that finally there was going to be a rational discussion about the drug policy in this country.
Then I heard what he said today.
“I don’t know what this says about our online audience.”
What it says is that a lot of your supporters smoke marijuana.
What this says that this is more than just about getting high.
What this says is that people are getting tired of living in a hypocritical society.
The one where those who get caught are branded like Cain and those that get away with it are branded as “cool.”
I wonder Mr. President; what your fate would have been if you were caught smoking pot or snorting coke like you admitted to in your book. Do you think you could be president?
Right now Mexico is a warzone; fueled by our dollars and our demand for a substance. A substance which if legalized would generate revenue rather than drain resources and swallows up lives.
We have the highest percentage of people in prison mostly for drug offenses.
We have probably spent 2 or three times the amount of money we have allocated for the Stimulus Package trying to stop the flow of drugs into this country.
Can anyone argue that we have succeeded or even come close to succeeded in that objective?
If that’s not the definition of a “failed program” I don’t know what is.
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Great comment. What’s more is that the war on drugs creates the violent cartels and keeps the price of drugs artificially high. In that sense, those cartels are subsidized by the US government. If the government set up road blocks and secret agencies to stop the flow of coca cola a 20oz bottle would probably be worth the cost of a nice bottle of wine.
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President Obama,
(Although I’m not an US citizen,) I petition you to legalize the production, sale and consumption of marijuana.
If America takes the lead, other countries will decriminalize it too.
I grew up with the ‘stigma’ of being a ‘closet’ marijuana smoker – because it is looked down upon by society and because possession and consumption ‘against the law’ (in my country) – yet available on the streets.
This has affected my personality, my professional and personal life – which would have been much better had marijuana been legal.
Yours,
Louis Ryder the 23rd
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I too was very disappointed to hear President Obama make light of what I consider should be a serious topic. The other uses for marijuana (hemp) such as fiber, hemp seeds, rope, etc are well documented and could bring a good solid cash crop to this country. I hope this subject will be revisited in a more serious manner and I have written to the president to make that request; hopefully, others will do the same.
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oh come on let’s not start with the rope, fiber, clothing argument. When’s the last time you bought a rope?
This kind of crap only dilutes the argument. Smoking it gets you high. Ok? Let’s agree on that and agree that we think its ok for adults to get high if they want to.
If it helps sick people, also great.
But let’s not talk about rope or medical marijuana.
Let’s talk about letting americans get high if they want to because the cost (money-cost and otherwise) of trying to stop them from getting high is too great and the benefit of stopping them from getting high is too little.
Deal?
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Smart! I am close to several people with mental illnesses, and in two of them pot is the only thing that works…so, they self-medicate. I want to see marijuana legalized for the medicinal value of the herb, but your points are very intelligent. I appreciate it.
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This kind of crap? Excuse me? The evidence is well documented. Hemp has been used for thousands of years for thousands of uses. Even if Mary J wasn’t legalized but hemp was it would be a boon to our economy as well to our society. It can indeed be made into rope,paper,cloth,textiles, and FUEL! Even plastics,food and more.
All from 1 plant. We could reduce our reliance on oil and timber. And it’s renewable. It does not dilute the argument. It strengthen’s it. Do your homework next time Cheryl. If anyone was wondering…..You bet I smoke.
ed note: please use the blockquote tag when quoting someone.
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I’m sorry, but there are FAR more important things going on in this life than your need to smoke drugs.
Besides that…. he said “It wouldn’t help the economy right now” that doesn’t mean he’s against it. Also, this shit happens at a “state” level, it will happen.. slowly. It’s already happening. But no, you people are too fucking high to understand it. Put down the bowl/bong/joint for a minute and think! Instead of being all pussy hurt that he said no right now, think about the long run. You damn pot heads always want people to think pot is a good thing, but yet you spout off like you have no sense.
There have already been a couple of states approve medical pot (which to me is just fine) but it’s the people that don’t need it medically that are whining and crying.
Although, I’m sure (since my comment is being moderated) you won’t post it.
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whoa what an asshole.
why wouldn’t i post it? Did you even read what I wrote?
I’m not a pot head. I don’t want marijuana to be legalized so that I can smoke it, I want it to be legalized because its a giant fucking waste of my tax money. I just filed my taxes last night and I paid $6,500 in taxes to the state of California in 2008.
If anyone who has a good grasp on how the state budget is spent give me an idea how much of that $6500 was spent on marijuana related stuff.
How about federal tax money?
I’d prefer that none of it was.
The funny this is, meme, is that you’re probably not an anti-drug conservative but just a nerdy, die-hard obama fanboy. As they say, politics makes strange bedfellows, and like it or not, most of the dumb potheads are in your party.
I think the Republican party will have to go more Libertarian in the next election cycle and will start to look more like the party that many Democrats think their party should be. The Democratic leadership today is all stodgy, uptight, wealthy new englanders who went to a Vietnam protest once.
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gr00vy i agree with andyfox that you are making a bit of a stretch there. i agree that hemp is good for rope, cloth, and paper, etc. but we also have cotton for that, so it wouldn’t make too much of a difference to the economy in that area. also, i’m sure hemp can be used as a source of biofuel, but most scientists have agreed that biofuel is not the way to go in terms of renewable energy. anything that requires more farmland is bad for the environment, because farmland takes away from wilderness. where most of our farms are now, there used to be a forest, and there still should be. harvesting solar and wind energy has very little effect on the environment and they are sources of energy that will always be reliable.
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If the Republican party does indeed go Libertarian, I am voting Republican.
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Like I posted this has absolutely nothing about wanting to get high or glorifying the pot culture.
This is about freedom.
This is about the right to make personal choices with what you can do with your body.
This is about using our resources properly and in a logical, rational way to help our country prosper and follow the principles we all claim to believe in.
The amounts of money that have been spent in the effort to stop narcotic use(I refuse to call it a drug war; stupid) have been astronomical. Like I stated if the American public was fully educated on the total cost of our drug laws both in human terms and monetary cost a lot of them would be(and I would argue are) shocked and angered by the lies and deceptions that our government have perpetrated in the name of “safety.”
This has nothing to do with counterculture dogma or encouraging people to escape into drugs. This is about changing the course of this nation. I thought that was what I heard the President talk about.
Now I am not a Obama nut; while I admire him and think he has the potential of being one of the greatest presidents in American history he is only human and is not a saint.
I wasn’t expecting the President to flat out say he was in favoring of legalizing MJ; I know the politics and the perception of that issue is still mired in negative stigma and social politics. However it would have encourage me that progress was being made if he at least treated the issue seriously and acknowledged that this an issue that will come to a head soon.
Both CA and MA are contemplating legislation to legalize and tax MJ. If that happens there will be a showdown between the state and the Fed government over who has the right to change drug laws.
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Every administration for the last 30 years has done this. They all come up with the same conclusion. Obama is a supporter of science and advancement. Making it easier for more people to become stoners is a step in the opposite direction.
The pot related crimes would fall but most of the people in prison for it are in there for trafficking, not because they had enough for themselves. They would not get out of jail.
If the police didn’t have to worry about pot they would just find something else stupid to waste their time on.
You also have the argument from coke and heroin users that say if marijuana is legalized then so should coke and heroin and any other drug that people choose to use.
Alcohol was legalized for the casual drinker, not for the alcoholic. Casual pot smokers don’t tend to have any more problem with the law than the guy who drank a little too much and then went to walmart late at night.
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It’s illegal to be an alcoholic? Well we both know it’s not but let’s just say that it was. Should we put every alcoholic in a cage? Is that advancement? Seems like a strange kind of victory.
Not sure what your point is.
Absolutely wrong.
Narcotic prohibition is a complete analog of Alcohol Prohibition. Prohibition in the 30′s was started as a social crusade that people implemented without realizing the economic and social cost to trying to regulate personal behavior.
Narcotic prohibition started mired in racial politics and social warfare. The government has wielded drug laws to attack certain groups and negate their influence in this country.
After Prohibition ended many of the criminal bootleggers became legit businesses. Some turned to narcotic trafficking because it was the only illegal thing left to do. As the US focused more and more resources towards drug interdiction the lucrative black market we see today is formed; but it all originated in Prohibition.
Joe Kennedy (JFK’s father) made profits from bootlegging. This would be tantamount to Obama’s father being a coke dealer and using the profit to go legit and get his son into politics.
That is what the government is scared of. These groups taking the profits from narcotics and creating new power groups; like the Italian and Irish Americans?
And to make the situation even more complex it has becomed ingrained into the very fabric of our nation.
Hundreds of billions of dollars spent every year on prisons and police enforcement; surveillance systems that erode our privacy. Not to mention the quite checkered history of our own nation supporting the narcotics trade when it benefited their interests. Just like the US did in WWII with the Mafia. Just like the CIA did in Vietnam or Panama or Nicaragua or Afghanistan. Hypocrisy.
Oh what you though this was about those stupid stoners smoking on the hill?
How about the Mexican farmer who grows that pot?
How about the cartels who exploit the black market?
How about all those police officers who are only working because their job is to stop the use of this substances?
All those prisons built to house the “undesirables?” Prisons overflowing with people mostly there for drug trafficking. Prisons that fuel the drug trade and creates the chaos that allows for further violence and conflict.
How about all those seriously addicted users who have no recourse towards treatment and live in the shadows for fear of being incarcerated?
How about all those hundreds of billions of dollars in sales that go untaxed?
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you cant get high on hemp which is used to make rope. it is actually not the same as marijuana that gets you high andyfox1979 you need to check your facts. and anyways why is hemp illegal? it doesnt get you high but it is good to make rope, fuel, clothing, paper and so on the list just keeps going and its completely renewable. and what, we have all the hemp products produced in other countries instead of growing it here. stupidity!
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champagne, yet another person who didn’t pass reading comprehension tests. I didn’t say you can get high on the fucking rope, I said that thats not the reason why people want it to be legal. Hemp products are already legal. I think people dilute their argument when they bring that stuff up. Read it again you dope.
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Obama is thinking rationaly. His actions and legislation have had great ctricism. Leagalizing marijuana is a huge risk amid a epochal period much like that of FDR. There are more important issues to adress before Obama will stick his hands in the idea of leagizing Marijuana. He musst be pragmatic and fully adress one issue at a time. It is an issue that is much more complex than people think.
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Over a year later.. Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein are against prop 19.. what were you saying?
I agree andyfox that I wasn’t expecting Obama to flat out come and support legalization.
I was expecting him to treat the idea of legalization seriously.
If he had responded to the legalization with, “Well it’s an interesting idea; an idea I have heard some people express. However I feel we need to more closely look at this idea carefully before we make a final determination on that particular policy. Right now my focus is on restoring the economy and creating a foundation to restore American prosperity. I don’t feel marijuana legalization is an issue we can address just yet until we right the ship and get this country back on track. Once the country is on the road to recovery we can look at this issue with all the attention it deserves and can make a rational decision based upon the facts.”
Perfectly non committal and respectful.
Unfortunately with his response he has once again trivialized a very serious issue and has essential relegated it back into the fringe; therefore making it hard; as always; to have a rational discussion about our drug policy.
I now find it maddening; we have a president who refuses to prosecute certain people because of political reasons (Bush admin and torture) but refuses to stop prosecuting people because of political reasons (drug users).
So what is the message here? We are a nation who will only punish people when it’s convenient to do so? What exactly is a criminal in this country? The actions of Bush and Co are no where near the level of a lowly street criminal?
The ironic thing about this whole situation is even if you accepted the logic that drug dealers are the scum of the earth and the source of death and misery you take the average number of deaths attributed to drug use(OD’s, gang violence, robbery and other crimes committed for the purpose of obtaining drugs) for the last 8 years and compared that to the possible number of deaths to iraqi and afghan civilians(most of whom were not responsible for 9/11 or terrorism and were never in a position to influence those actions) there would be no comparison.
Yet drug dealers and users are branded as evil incarnate and prosecuted with a religious zealously. Meanwhile warmongers and torturers will go free because it is inconvenient to prosecute them.
The ultimate hypocrisy.
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Don’t forget that pharmaceutical companies are against this since it eases pain, nausea, glaucoma, anxiety, and depression. I’m sure alcohol companies wouldn’t like this safer alternative as competition either. It should be legalized, but it never will be.
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Actually I find it strange that Big Pharma isn’t in the forefront of legalization; since for example morphine was used for strictly medicinal purposes and they had to stop due to the government stepping in and declaring opiates an illegal substance. If I am not mistaken opiates are a much more effective pain reliever than most of the substitutes out there and it’s completely amazing how Big Pharma is not itching to pluck such a low lying fruit as THC; which appears to have multiple medicinal uses.
Not only that I argue that drug prohibition has stifled growth and scientific innovation. I for the life of me don’t understand how no one can see the economic growth potential that drug rehabilitation could have on the medical industry. There is the potential of creating whole new fields of science just devoted to addiction physiology, brain chemistry restoration and possibly others that we do not even know exist yet. Whole hospitals can be created just devoted to drug rehabilitation. It in fact could and should be the foundation of our national healthcare system.
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I care not to legalize Mary Jane for recreation but to put Ford and GM back in business and the price of everything will go lower. If don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s biodiesel. Growing MJ is easy and depending on it give us healthier air and we could then say F you to the Arabs.
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I smoke, I have no idea why you get these run of the mill retards complaining about it. I’m high and I can tell that meme is an idiot.
I think that due to the lucrative cannabis trade already established the government cannot create a monopoly, therefore it won’t be legalised.
I agree with AF that the whole biofuel/rope/crap thing is bullshit you smoke to get high, no other reason. Anyways smoking makes idiots more tolerable.
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I agree. I’d rather have the cops spend time on the murderers and rapists and abusers than Johnny the Stoner Down The Street. I think weed could be legalized successfully if it also came with regulations. No smoking near children or in public areas, all weed has to be sold by licensed people/businesses, can’t blaze up and drive or work, can’t smoke weed in schools etc. Basically the same regulations as cigarettes or alcohol. As long as we all know that weed has the ability to deteriorate your brain if used very often(in a very simplified view of the weed/intelligence correlation), than it is your choice, like everything else. You know the consequences.
And the reason weed can and not heroin and such could be legalized is simply because: When is the last time you heard about a man high on weed broke into a house and killed someone for weed money? Never, at least, not to my knowledge. Weed is not a “gateway drug”. That’s like when kids eats a little junk food and someone says that they’re unhealthy and are setting themselves up for fatness.
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