Subscribe to Receive the Daily Report

Saturday, February 18th, 2012

Obama’s War on Pot

Author:     Tim Dickinson
Source:     Rolling Stone
Publication Date:     February 16, 2012 9:55 AM ET
 Link: Obama’s War on Pot
Stephan:   There are many things I don't like about the Obama Administration, and this is high on the list. We have 2.3 million people, disproportionately people of color, in prison -- the largest gulag in the world. America constitutes about 4.5 per cent of the world's population, but it has 25 per cent of the world's total prisoner population. About 700,000 of them are there because of non-violent drug convictions. it costs on average $35,000 a year to maintain a medium security prisoner. We seem to have no money to educate our children but we seem to have endless money to incarcerate them. Once again we see ideology and theology trumping scientific research. It is increasingly the hallmark of the United States.

Back when he was running for president in 2008, Barack Obama insisted that medical marijuana was an issue best left to state and local governments. ‘I’m not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue,’ he vowed, promising an end to the Bush administration’s high-profile raids on providers of medical pot, which is legal in 16 states and the District of Columbia.

But over the past year, the Obama administration has quietly unleashed a multi­agency crackdown on medical cannabis that goes far beyond anything undertaken by George W. Bush. The feds are busting growers who operate in full compliance with state laws, vowing to seize the property of anyone who dares to even rent to legal pot dispensaries, and threatening to imprison state employees responsible for regulating medical marijuana. With more than 100 raids on pot dispensaries during his first three years, Obama is now on pace to exceed Bush’s record for medical-marijuana busts. ‘There’s no question that Obama’s the worst president on medical marijuana,’ says Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. ‘He’s gone from first to worst.’

The federal crackdown imperils the medical care of the estimated 730,000 patients […]

Read the Full Article