At the top of the Obama Transition Team’s change.gov website is the following quote from the President-elect:
“Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today”
The website allowed for users to submit questions through the site about the incoming administration’s agenda. After visitors to the website were able to vote for or against the submitted questions, the following question was the most popular:
“Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?”
One could easily argue that this isn’t the most pressing issue facing America right now, but it’s certainly the one for which the continued lack of a sane answer from politicians confounds the highest number of people. Obama’s response was predictable:
President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana.
While I never expected Barack Obama to simply end maijuana prohibition from the Oval Office, there are potential situations for which his role in drug policy will be interesting to watch. During the Democratic primary campaign, he vowed to stop the federal raids in medical marijuana states (then again, so did Bush in 2000, but that certainly didn’t happen). If Obama follows through on that promise, it’ll be a good start. But what happens if a state takes the next step and moves towards regulated and taxed sales as a budget-boosting measure? Will Obama use federal government resources to fight it, or will he also view that as a states’ rights issue?
The reason that these questions matter is because much of the reluctance at the state level to move forward on drug policy is because they fear coming in conflict with federal law. If we have an incoming administration that accepts the right of the states to decide these issues for themselves without interference – even if its something that Obama doesn’t necessarily support – we may start seeing states finding that ending a costly and counterproductive prohibition is a smart move in these tough economic times (remember that alcohol prohibition ended very quickly in the early 1930s after the economy went south).
Lee, you ignorant pothead…
Just look at the mess Amsterdam is in after legalizing drugs & prostitution.
It’s a cesspool.
It used to be the postercity of you potheads.
Go to Amsterdammit.
Just look at the mess Amsterdam is in after legalizing drugs & prostitution.
It’s a cesspool.
No, it’s not. Holland has considerably lower usage rates of marijuana and hard drugs than the United States. They also generate hundreds of billions of dollars in extra tax revenue from sales of marijuana, which contributes to them having better social services than America, including health care and infrastructure.
It used to be the postercity of you potheads.
It still is. Maybe you should go there and discover for yourself that Rush and Hannity don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. Of course, you’ll never do that, because you’re a grown man who still wants to believe in Santa.
Good luck with that.
@1
Here are some references you can check out if you have any interest in dislodging your head from your ass.
http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/67
http://www.nisnews.nl/public/030508_1.htm
Or, as I said, you could just travel to Holland yourself and see how much of a “cesspool” it is.
I don’t think that a generic and predictable answer on a politician’s website should cause much disappointment.
I think Barack Obama is well aware of the high price minorities have paid for the drug war. His policies probably won’t amount to a revolution but they will constitute a shift toward greater rationality.
I’m starting to think my fellow progressives in listening to Air America, reading liberal blogs, or watching Keith Olbermann adopted some sort of fantasy that if your presidential pick won he or she would adopt all views expressed and that an obedient congress would approve those ideas without question, no matter what the political consequences when they’re up for reelection.
Hopefully by now you’ve woken up.
@5…….close jc. what you all are missing is that the buck doesnt stop at the president. depending on your appetite for conspiracy, the levels above the president are thus:
1. what will get him re-elected
2. his own party elders
3. his campaign contributers
4. my personal favorite, the powers behind the scenes that have secretly governed for hundreds of years
but seriuosly, anyone who believes a president sits in the oval office and says hmmmm, what is the best for my country is an idealistic simpleton.
@4
I think Barack Obama is well aware of the high price minorities have paid for the drug war. His policies probably won’t amount to a revolution but they will constitute a shift toward greater rationality.
I’m still cautiously optimistic about it too, but I’m not expecting miracles. I’m just hoping for someone who isn’t speeding in reverse (like the current White House).
@6
but seriuosly, anyone who believes a president sits in the oval office and says hmmmm, what is the best for my country is an idealistic simpleton.
Actually, I think every President (even the current one) believes they’re doing what’s best for the country. It’s just that many of them have been creatures of politics for so long that they can’t discern between political expediency and actual progress.
Lee spews: ‘President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana.’
Poor lil Lee, what are you to do now? Try growing up you worm.
The more things change………………..
Given that Republicans support wide-open gambling you’d think they’d support wide-open pot-smoking, too. After all, the latter is much less harmful than the former, and would generate far more state revenue than several thousand additional Indian slot machines. Of course, nothing Republicans do makes logical sense, so you can’t expect them to be sensible about this, either.
…Gee, you think? Ask the Democrat Governor why she made on-line gambling a class C felony while running the largest gambling entity in the state (lotto) and takes financial contributions from the tribes (money they have thanks to their Casinos).
Lee
I have no idea how much money Holland makes from pot but the main reason they are such a rich country is there ports. A vast part of European trade moves onj the Rhine on the Rhine .. not just exports but imports of oil and nat gas.
The result is a very wealthy country with a unique social conscience. I think the tolerance of pot reflects the latter. On many issues, Islam, use of English, education, the Netherlands are .. well, rational.
Lee the Pothead—be aware that mixing your Prozac with BC Bud is known to cause early-onset Alzheimer’s!
And this from economist.com:
Dimming Amsterdam’s ‘red light’ district
Posted by: Economist.com
Amsterdam is showing you what is inevitable with free love and plenty of drugs….the low element (like you Lee) start dominating and it quickly tumbles downhill REQUIRING GOVERNMENT CONTROL! Another bureaucracy…just what you KLOWNS want.
@14 ,,, Mr Cynicquy
Forgetiaboutit.
The redlight district in ‘dam is prime property for development. It is acress form the railroad station and I ‘spect the real issue here is that there is a shit load more $$ to be made with high rise condoes than cheap bars.
And that love ain’t free, clown.
The reason our government will never legalize pot is because big business can’t profit from it. That’s the logic behind keeping it criminalized. If there was a way they could kill off Cannabis sativa and its kin worldwide while sparing a corporately-created strain, then it probably would be legalized.
15:
And with the global economic crisis hitting the Netherlands as hard as anyone else, it’s likely that such redevelopment will be slowed greatly. The Dutch are sensible people, and I think they’ll figure out soon enough that occupied and busy brothels and drug-shops generate more revenue for the government than empty condos.
Mr. Cynical is clearly a bitch.
And Obama’s response is severely lackluster, too. We’ll see what comes to pass…
But as all of us but Mr. Cynical know, prohibition on alcohol didn’t work, and it sure as hell doesn’t work for drugs.
Who’s ever heard of the Shaffer (sp?) Study? In 1972-ish, then-President Nixon commissioned a study on drugs, conducted at Penn State (with then-PA governor Shaffer, hence the name).
It’s findings? It would be far wiser to legalize and regulate marijuana. And to decriminalize and regulate other drugs. Instead, Nixon threw the results of that 2-year study out the window and started the Drug War.
Oh, and just to be clear, Mr. Cynical is a bitch.
Ask Change.gov anything about Blagojevich and the question is deleted. So much for open government and transparency, eh?