Scott Morgan writes in the Huffington Post about the Obama Administration’s continued war on medical marijuana:
I have no idea whether Obama himself is as enthusiastic about destroying medical marijuana as the folks at DOJ who’ve been doing the actual dirty work, but the answer to that question doesn’t matter. If Obama can blame Mitt Romney for what Bain Capital did while he was CEO, we can sure as hell blame Obama for what the Justice Department does when he’s the president.
He told us we could expect better than this. And yet the problem isn’t just that he failed to keep his word, or even that his attorney general rather blatantly lied to Congress about it, as awful as that is. The greatest disgrace in all of this is the perpetuation of a reprehensible policy that crushes the will of voters and the wisdom of legislatures, that stands between sick people and the medicine their doctors recommend, that hands control of cannabis back to cartels that kill people, and that creates a continuing war in our own communities when there could so easily be peace.
Obama once said that undermining medical marijuana laws was a poor use of resources, and he was right. But it’s not only a poor use of resources, it’s also just plain wrong. As a candidate, and as a leader, it’s time for our president to make things right.
Obama can start by replacing U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, the most egregious of the DOJ officials undermining his previous promises to respect those who comply with state medical marijuana laws.
Does anyone know the background on Haag? Was she one of the screened hires from the Bush administration? The more I see the DOJ working or in some cases not working on cases that seem counter to Obama’s once stated goals, the more suspicious I am of the political hires in the DOJ during the Bush administration. How much of this is being pushed by their agenda? I really wish I had the time, resources, and know how to research all the DOJ hires during the previous adminstration and compare them to their current caseloads. I don’t know if there is anything to find, but it is just the sneaky kind of thing the neo-cons are capable of pulling.
@1 I was wondering the same thing–and was surprised to find she’s an Obama appointee. Whether or not he expected her to go on such a grand crusade against Killer Weed is questionable, but now it’s been pointed out that he has a bit of a problem of the considerable amount of political hay the right would make if he fired her going into the election.
Screw it. If I were in his shoes, I’d can her ass and offer the job to John McKay.
One thing we can all do is to support I-502. Legalizing cannabis is only a matter of time, and letting the federal government know that its cannabis laws are insane by voting for such initiatives as I-502 will speed-up the process of legalization. It’s about time!