Why Obama Really Might Decriminalize Marijuana

[dysfunctional press]

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/richardson-report/obama-marijuana-legalization-122308

Why Obama Really Might Decriminalize Marijuana

Famously, Franklin Delano Roosevelt saved the United States banking system during the first seven days of his first term.And what did he do on the eighth day? "I think this would be a good time for beer," he said. Congress had already repealed Prohibition, pending ratification from the states. But the people needed a lift, and legalizing beer would create a million jobs. And lo, booze was back. Two days after the bill passed, Milwaukee brewers hired six hundred people and paid their first $10 million in taxes. Soon the auto industry was tooling up the first $12 million worth of delivery trucks, and brewers were pouring tens of millions into new plants.

"Roosevelt's move to legalize beer had the effect he intended," says Adam Cohen, author of Nothing To Fear, a thrilling new history of FDR's first hundred days. "It was, one journalist observed, 'like a stick of dynamite into a log jam.'" Many in the marijuana world are now hoping for something similar from Barack Obama. After all, the president-elect said in 2004 that the war on drugs had been "an utter failure" and that America should decriminalize pot:

In July, Obama told Rolling Stone that he believed in "shifting the paradigm" to a public-health approach: "I would start with nonviolent, first-time drug offenders. The notion that we are imposing felonies on them or sending them to prison, where they are getting advanced degrees in criminality, instead of thinking about ways like drug courts that can get them back on track in their lives -- it's expensive, it's counterproductive, and it doesn't make sense..."

[Captain Hilts]

1. Don't bet on it.

[musiclawyer]

2. If he does, his balls are bigger than I thought

You know how he came out with the big prime time speech about race in response to Rev. Wright. He should do the same thing re the war on drugs. Basically tell the American people what thinking Americans already know, and introduce a phasing in of legalized/taxed pot over the course of three years, and describe how many jobs it would create etc......

But I'm not holding my breath

[ContinentalOp]

7. I think the best way would be to just do it. Quietly and without fanfare.

He should just decriminalize weed at the Federal level and quietly push it onto the states.

[dysfunctional press]

27. changing it's dea classification from schedule 1 to schedule 3 or 4 would be one way to start...

admit that it has medicinal use, and allow it to be used for those purposes.

[mdmc]

3. That would take courage

I know Obama has brains and charisma...

[dysfunctional press]

28. it would surprise me if any move was made in that direction in his first term...

time will tell.

[AtomicKitten]

4. He has talked about decriminalization of "soft drugs" before and has authored

legislation in Illinois for parity in sentencing.

[Ioo]

5. Hold your breath...

Not going to happen at a fed level until the courts step in (if they would). Just line up behind the gays over here in the "we'll get to you..." camp.

[Freddie Stubbs]

6. President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana:

http://change.gov/newsroom/entry/open_for_questions_response/

[tekisui]

14. He is in favor of fixing or getting rid of mandatory minimums.

There is a good bit of space between decriminalization and legalization.

[dysfunctional press]

29. decriminalization is not the same as legalisation.

nt

[Uncle Joe]

8. I hope you're correct, it would be a logical step back to sanity.

Thanks for the thread, QuestionAll.

[proud patriot]

9. it would be a profitable move for the States and Fed Gov

To remove something from the black market seems
wise to me . California's number one agricultural
crop in 1900 before prohibition was marijuana.

Currently it is still our number one crop . However
we as a state are unable to profit from it .

[dysfunctional press]

30. it's an economic double-whammy(at least)...

not only are taxes not being collected on the billions upon billions in sales- but mucho cash is being expended in law enforcement, court time, and incarceration. money, manpower, and prison space that could be much better allocated to violent/threatening offenders.

[FormerDittoHead]

10. It would be great if he at least turned it over to the states.

Keep the Fed patrolling the borders for illegal trafficking, but get the Fed out of the drug business. Spend the money policing WALL STREET.

[dysfunctional press]

31. as broke as the states are, i'm sure that they'd LOVE the potential increase n income...

and decrease in expenditures.

just think how much aahnold could potentially have to help fill california's budget hole.

[no limit]

11. Even if you decriminalize it will still have to be produced and sold underground

there will be no magic boom in the economy unless it is fully legalized.

[Chulanowa]

12. And then watch as all growers and smokers are still criminals

This time due to copyright and patent laws as big pharma and big farmer both lay claim to all the strains they can get their hands on. Plus tax issues!

Full legalization won't help out the little guy, it'll just shift the charges to something else

[no limit]

13. I really doubt they can copyright pot. As far as I know anyone can grow their own tobacco

I think the only reason that it isn't legal is exactly because they can't copyright it.

[FormerDittoHead]

16. Decriminalization means it won't be a crime, rather, like a parking ticket.

First off, BOOZE has any number of criminal laws making it a crime to sell without a license, give it to kids, transport it, etc.

I would fully expect a set of similar laws for pot.

For example, you can make own wine, beer, & spirits. But make too much of it, or start selling it, and you're in trouble.

The large players with the distribution channels already open will be at an advantage, especially with licensing for sale, however, they may not even get into it for fear of bible belt backlash.

Lastly, as I said below, the model has been tested. It's working in California today. In Massachusetts, the penalty for personal use possession is $100 with no criminal record.

Just get the Fed out. Obama will be in charge of the cops. It can be done.

[dysfunctional press]

34. i'd like to see them selling personal growing licenses...

for people who want to grow their own.

[FormerDittoHead]

15. The money spent imprisoning pot users, and the cost of their ruined lives.

I just look at California. I have a friend in San Francisco. It's being done there. Today.

There will not be any one, single, magic fix. But I say this would help.

[DainBramaged]

17. It NEEDS to be done, too many people's lives have been ruined by the Bushbots

and their quantity over quality policy of busting the average user or smoker rather than go after the sources. Is it any wonder why the drugs gangs have taken over Mexico now?

Free the dopers, free the dopers, free the dopers.

[dysfunctional press]

33. the clinton administration was pretty rough on the average user as well.

it wasn't a new development under the lil' fuhrer.

[cbc5g]

18. It's anyones guess what Obama will do..he has yet to even pick his drug czar

[FormerDittoHead]

20. Let's hope for *NO* Drug Czar!!! n/t

[cbc5g]

23. Biden helped create the drug czar position

It's not lookin' too good

[RadiationTherapy]

19. Now is the time. This will make a big difference in our economy.

The cumulative savings and potential profit are staggering.

[dysfunctional press]

32. not to mention the possible benefits to ancillary industries...

head shops, bong/pipe makers, Hostess foods, frito-lay, southland corp.(7-11), video arcades, etc...

[lib2DaBone]

21. Tax it and make it a profit center.... prohibition does not work...

We learned NOTHING during the Volstead Act.

Drive-by shootings, gang wars, corruption.

Let's end the insanity. The money we spend on minor marijuana violations would staff hundreds of schools and provide health care for millions.

[dysfunctional press]

35. alcohol prohibition and marijuana 'prohibition' are two entirely different things...

alcohol use is/was much more ingrained into american society, as well being used in rites by many different religions

yes- there are the same kind of violent 'turf wars' over control of selling- large scale and small...but by and large, the general public is not yet clammoring for the war on drug(user)s to end...after all- it's about the children.

even though studies have shown that it's easier for most high school kids to get pot, than it is for them to get alcohol or tobacco products.

[Fumesucker]

38. One of the reasons alcohol prohibition was ended was because more kids were drinking..

It was easier for kids to get alcohol during prohibition than either before or after.

Works the same way with other things, a black market makes it easier for kids to get stuff they really shouldn't have.

[Romulox]

22. During the campaign, Obama claimed he didn't know what "decriminalization" meant. nt

[Fovea]

24. In the PATRIOT act, MCA world

the simple social control system benchmark aspect of Marijuana prohibition is irrelevant.

Once you can take Habeas Corpus away, the ability to arbitrarily prohibit
a harmless (in comparison with other drugs, MJ results in almost zero admissions to ERs) substance.

All this misery just because someone in the elite desires a continuous demonstration of social control
Anslinger's prohibition was coming apart by the mid sixties.

They just got too freaked out by 1968.

But globalism is deteriorating and they must marshal all their forces to fight the new new deal.
Bottom line, it might decrim. Industrial hemp will be de rigeur as soon as oil gets back off the floor.

[WhiteTara]

25. Look up Eric Holder

and tell me that again.

[Pastiche423]

26. Yep!

Chiquita Holder is anti-marijuana, among many other things.

Besides, Obama won't.

[Politicalboi]

36. Obama did say a while back

That he wanted the DEA out of the Med MJ business. Let's hope he keeps his word.

[dysfunctional press]

39. that is a sliver of hope...

hopefully sanity will prevail.

[ellisonz]

37. I'm not optimistic.

Barack knows what utter insanity both the domestic and international Wars on Some Drugs are but unfortunately this country is too ass backwards to change course. He's not stupid.

[dysfunctional press]

40. i'll be happy if he at least makes the initial incremental steps.

it's not going to happen all at once.

[ellisonz]

41. This drug war is so ingrained in the bureaucracy and the population at large...

...that I'm not sure if even that can be achieved without a massive political price.

[dysfunctional press]

42. i don't think that the "population at large" has any particular respect for it...

and i also think they're getting fed up with all the government's various "wars" on just about everything, especially when they aren't winning anything.

[babydollhead]

43. I wish it comes true

[WillieW]

44. We can always move to Amsterdam.