There is only one thing I want President Obama to do about marijuana

[jmowreader]

We can all sit around going "pot should be legalized, pot should be available at corner stores, pot is a good drug" all day long.

As well it should be. Except for MAYBE caffeine, pot is the most benign recreational drug going. It's the only one that has no attainable LD50. There probably IS one, but it's higher than anyone could ever ingest. OTOH, decades of Reefer Madness mean if a Democrat just comes in and legalizes weed, the Republicans could win in 2012 with a Bush on the ticket.

The one thing I want President Obama to do about marijuana is to move it from Schedule I (high potential for abuse, high potential for addiction, no medical use) to Schedule III (good potential for abuse, low potential for addiction, accepted medical use). Once it's there, it can be added to the United States Pharmacopeia--the list of drugs you can legally sell in the US.

I think if we're ever going to get to the endstate where pot is as acceptable as, say, beer, we're going to have to start with chemo patients being able to eat because they put pot in their dinners, glaucoma patients not losing their sight because they have a pot brownie every day, and asthma patients being able to breathe because pot and not weird chemicals are in their nebulizers. Then we can work on pot being legal because it's less-harmful fun than tequila is.

[Fumesucker]

1. People have died from caffeine overdose.

It's rare but it has happened.

[WillieW]

8. Better cut back on Starbucks. LOL

[Deep13]

2. Sounds reasonable.

It would be available by prescription and trafficing offenses would be reduced.

[jmowreader]

6. I don't know if trafficking offenses would be reduced...

but it WOULD negate the reason for cannabis buyers' clubs.

There would be prescription marijuana. It would be grown hydroponically from known seeds, raised a prescribed way and tested for THC level. A Good Manufacturing Practices for reefer. Hell, pharmaceutical companies could grow it. It would be a very profitable venture for them--some grow lights and a hydroponics setup, and they could grow good kind right in the back of the warehouse. I'd even let them patent their strains of weed--they patent other kinds of plants, so why not?

[NightWatcher]

3. Obama's pic of Holder for AG shows me that he will not be kind to marijuana users

be they stoners, kids, or suffering

[polichick]

4. I want it legalized as a sign that the culture wars are coming to an end...

Congress couldn't function without its booze ~ time to end the hypocrisy.

[soulcore]

15. Half the population couldn't survive without their booze!

And they risk my life every time they drive home drunk from a bar, restaurant or their latest 'bread & circus" of choice.

But I get called a pot-head, lazy, criminal, munchie-having, unmotivated, supporter of terrorists because I like to relax with a nice fat blunt at the end of my day as opposed to a 5th of Vodka.

And the fact that is has multiple and varied medicinal and manufacturing uses, along with NO attainable LD50 ... well, it's too much to ask for common sense to prevail here in Amerika.

[polichick]

16. Yep - this country has such an absurd blindness to hypocrisy.

[T Wolf]

5. An even-less risky (politically) thing would be to just instruct the DOJ to NOT involve themselves

with states (like CA) that have passed their own, enlightened laws.

Regardless, if he does anything that can be spun to be less-than-draconian against drugs, the stereotypes (nd you know what those are) will come spewing from the mouths of the pukes and the media.

Now, can we say that the new Pres. is someone we would like to sit around with and smoke a J?

[jmowreader]

7. Better the new president than the (ugh) current one

The current one would lace it with PCP just so he could laugh at you.

[LostinVA]

9. Or do what they did in Germany: it's not legal, but you won't be arrested for it

[reggie the dog]

14. it's a landers rights issue there

some landers fine you for five grams or less, others for thirty grams or less, other landers let you have ten grams legally. growing your supply is not legal nor is buying it but it is sold in bars in Berlin now.

[Uncle Joe]

10. It seems to me that if anyone wanted to legalize Spiderman's girlfriend,

they should turn the tables on the Republicans who generally use the argument of Democrats being for "big government" and if they bring up that crap about us being "soft on crime" we counter-punch with "we're strong on freedom and privacy."

I believe this issue would resonate as a net gain with the American People, for whichever political party abandons the insane, illogical, Orwellian, counterproductive, organized crime enhancing and asinine "war against an inanimate object" particularly Marijuana.

[ixion]

11. caffeine is a lethal drug, as are alcohol and nicotine... marijuana is neither lethal

nor addictive, which is one of the best reasons I know of for legalization.

[Maru Kitteh]

12. It makes no sense for marijuana to be a schedule I drug. Your proposal is sensible and attainable.

I don't do pot, never have, but the resources wasted on criminalizing this drug are just insane.

[reggie the dog]

13. you have a great point

schedule III is the place to start.

We also need a legal distinction between industrial hemp and smokable cannabis.

[Speck Tater]

17. After the economy collapses

and people adjust to riding bikes and horses, and eating locally-grown food, and government shrinks to almost nothing due to lack of funding, and more important enforcement issues take the place of pot busts, pot growing will become a legitimate addition to the local economy and what little is left of government just won't care. The local pot framer, like the local corn farmer, and the local horse shoer, will be just another part of the local barter economy.

[soulcore]

19. I eagerly await that glorious day! n/t

[spanone]

18. medical marijuana....please

[qwlauren35]

20. I think this is a good idea. Is anyone lobbying for it?

I'd add that this is the sort of thing that a surgeon general might be able to address.

[Pastiche423]

21. He won't

He's already said as much.

[dipsydoodle]

22. Thought you were going to say

put it in his pipe and smoke it.