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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFormer Obama drug policy adviser predicts weed war if states legalize
Source: Raw Story
By Stephen C. Webster
Sunday, November 4, 2012 20:19 EST
The Obama administration will not just sit by and watch as up to three states attempt to implement laws legalizing marijuana, one of the presidents former senior drug policy advisers predicted Sunday.
Officially, the Obama administration hasnt said how it will react if three states legalize marijuana this week, but Dr. Kevin A. Sabet, who spent three years as a senior adviser to Obamas Office of National Drug Control Policy, thinks he knows.
Speaking to NBC News for a report published Sunday, Sabet warned that voters in Colorado, Washington and Oregon may just bring fire and brimstone down on their heads if they vote for ballot measures that would legalize marijuana under state law.
Once these states actually try to implement these laws, we will see an effort by the feds to shut it down, he reportedly said. We can only guess now what exactly that would look like. But the recent U.S. Attorney actions against medical marijuana portends an aggressive effort to stop state-sponsored growing and selling at the outset.
Despite the presidents prior support for decriminalization, Obama has cracked down harder on medical marijuana than any president to come before him. In the 17 states where medical marijuana is legal, U.S. Attorneys have enlisted the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to take down hundreds of pot shops in just a few short years.
The question voters should be asking themselves before voting on these initiatives is this: Is your right to buy pot from a store down the street worth the risk of increased teenage drug abuse, increased enforcement action by the feds, and increased problems like stoned driving? Sabet said.
However, its not clear that voters will see these potential downsides as outweighing reasons supporters give for legalization, including millions in new tax revenues and vast savings on law enforcement, along with a potential reduction in violence associated with criminal gangs that control the black markets where illegal drugs are sold.
Its also not clear that legalization would lead to increases in drugged driving accidents in fact, two professors who examined that question in 2011 found that accidents actually decreased (PDF) in states that legalized medical marijuana.
Supporters also point to similar data that shows teenage drug use went down in Colorado after the state legalized medical marijuana, arguing that requiring an identification to buy the drug is a more effective control than outright prohibition.
Whether any of these arguments will be enough to sway voters remains anyones guess, but with only two days remaining before the election, it wont be long before we find out.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/11/04/former-obama-drug-policy-adviser-predicts-weed-war-if-states-legalize/
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)have to stop them. This should be a primary issue for all states to stop the phony Drug War, end the disgraceful incarceration of so many people, mostly minorities, and get some rights restored to the American people.
2pooped2pop
(5,420 posts)You didn't think they were going to put embezzlers, liars and cheaters in there did you. No it's for the god damned pot heads.
I will tell you that Obama is causing more harm with this than any other thing that I know of. This is enough to make me not vote for him. Yes, of course I will, but if I had a viable option, I would not. He is looking the other way of a very serious issue that hurts the poor, middle class and minorities.
Shit, I got to stop thinking about this because it is making me angry enough to not vote.
jmowreader
(50,562 posts)If they legalize pot for adults, teens will have an easier time getting it? That's the excuse they use to shut down everything. It's getting very old especially since teens have no problem getting pot now.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Raster
(20,998 posts)1. The drug gangs and cartels responsible for importing and selling;
2. The American for-profit prison industry; and
3. The Military-Industrial Complex which has made a fortune militarizing local police and sheriff departments.
And oh yeah, speaking of those local police and sheriff departments: no longer able to confiscate at will.
Iggy
(1,418 posts)Isn't this already the case, just across the border in Mexico?
randome
(34,845 posts)Black market sales to neighboring states. And for those who say that's okay, might I remind you that much of this initiative is framed as a states' rights issue.
I don't see much good coming from this. Some of you say it will be the beginning of the end of prohibition. I really don't think so. The federal government can always cut funding to states that legalize. And then all the arguments about money regarding pot go out the window.
the huge DISconnect for me here is per the recent Obama biography, apparently he did inhale... quite a bit. this is one more major policy issue where there is ZERO difference between the dems and repugs.
Vincardog
(20,234 posts)DiverDave
(4,887 posts)we WILL win.
The moneyed will TELL the government what to do,as they always have.
WE will win, we just have to stand strong.
Fuck the rich, they have made PLENTY off of our suffering.
Time for them to look elsewhere for mega profits.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Personally, I think he's playing 420-level chess.
tell it to the suffering, the people looking at a long sentence, that your chessmaster
put there.
I support him, but I am RIGHT pissed off about his '420 chess'
People are suffering and he doesnt care, he listens to the money.
Is he going to pardon all the folks that were arrested under his watch?
He lied when he said he would lighten up, flat out lied.
But, I'll vote for him simply because there isnt any better.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)Pointing out issues the President is lacking on does not make one right wing. It makes one politically and socially aware rather then just a spectator at a sporting event.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Talk about ignoring reality.
2pooped2pop
(5,420 posts)how many low and middle income people can't get a job because of pot in their system? You can if you do coke or meth but not pot because it stays in your system so much longer.
You get hurt at work, through no fault but your employers cutting of corners, they test you, blame it on pot you smoked last month, fire you. Now you lose your insurance, lose your job, might as well lose your life.
Pot is not the gateway drug. Alcohol is. Make alcohol as illegal as pot. That's right Obama, your beer making is now illegal. No? Why not? We all know that alcohol is way way worse than pot. And pot has been shown to be helpful as a treatment, not only for the calming ability and that it makes you able to eat, but also has shown to help for heart disease, Alzheimer's, and even cancer.
So who is bringing the pot in from within the govt. that doesn't want to lose their cash cow? Because that and the drug and alcohol company's are what keeps it illegal.
cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)2pooped2pop
(5,420 posts)cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)DrummerMan
(23 posts)1) this change, just like ending prohibition, has to come from the people up. Not from the top down. As much as I love Obama, can you imagine the racial BS spewing forth from the ignorant Faux herd if a black man legalized weed. I guarantee you, he will only take action when there's no clear other alternative. I have hope that his administration might change course and do more looking the other way term two, but I'm realistic, too. I'm not going to be surprised if that doesn't happen and he continues to come down hard on the cannabis community.
2) This change will come only through sustained and repeated efforts by advocates. From an alternet article via NORML's blog today:
"Similar to alcohol prohibition, cannabis prohibition is a federal policy that largely relies on state and local enforcement. How did federal alcohol prohibition come to an end? Simple. When a sufficient number of states led by New York in 1923 (several other states, including Colorado, later followed) enacted legislation repealing the states alcohol prohibition laws. With states no longer doing the federal governments bidding to enforce an unpopular law, the Feds eventually had no choice but to abandon the policy altogether."
I guarantee the only way we'll legalize it is to make the contrary position untenable. This will happen, but it will take time and we need to keep up the fight and be patient towards this end. We need to continually pressure lawmakers, educate the misinformed, and keep advocating for true unbiased research until we achieve our goal of reversing the racist and immoral prohibition of this safe, healing plant.
marlakay
(11,498 posts)That we should start by promoting companies using hemp. Let the Feds try to stop that! What are they going to say?
MisterJones
(23 posts)I find it interesting that these" small government" republicans are so adamant about federal intervention and control when it comes to Marijuana enforcement. It seems to be a questionable position for them to take. I also know that the Obama administration was at least ambivalent when it came to Medical Marijuana during the first two years of his administration. It was not until 2010 when Obama appointed a neo-con bush leftover Haag as USAttorney , that MMJ arrests went up and clinics were shut down. In his second term I fully expect Pres. Obama to take a more liberal stance on this issue and I hope that this noise coming from the US attorney is just pre-election bluster for the sake of optics. Hopefully in his second term Obama can shed the bi-partisan nonsense when it comes to social issues because frankly it hasn't been working and it wont work when our Republican congress has no interest in working across the aisle. The first term he had a mandate and was too much in the center to use it effectively with all the obstructionist behavior from the right in congress. Hopefully he can work from a more liberal position in his second.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)I predict that Obama will never touch this issue one way or another, and rightly so.
But the notion that the Drug-Feds can make headway without the full support of local authorities is fatuous, look at Mexico if you want to know what that looks like, outlaw drug fiefdoms at constant war within and without. And it is already the case that local authorities in MM states use the Feds to protect local growers against "outside interests".
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)It's an idiotic, indefesnsible policy, and it is crumbling before our eyes.
Like gay marriage. The trickle will become a flood, and the long-overdue change, when it comes, will come relatively fast.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)and I would like to keep it chugging along.
Ohio Joe
(21,761 posts)I am voting to legalize.
bluestate10
(10,942 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)To throw Jamband fans, cancer grannies and Willie Nelson in prison for smoking a relatively harmless plant?"