http://www.alternet.org/story/150840/what%27s_up_with_obama%27s_cynical_approach_to_medical_marijuanaFrom May 4, 2011:
...The Obama administration has attacked medical-marijuana providers on several fronts. Since January 2010, it has staged more than 90 raids on dispensaries and growers, according to figures collected by the patient-advocacy group Americans for Safe Access. That represents a pace double the Bush administration's, says ASA spokesperson Kris Hermes. The administration has also threatened state officials with prosecution if they participate in licensing or regulating medical marijuana. The Internal Revenue Service has expanded auditing dispensaries for tax evasion, on the grounds that drug-trafficking enterprises cannot legally claim business-expense deductions.
also
The Obama administration has also continued Bush-era prosecutions of medical-marijuana providers. On May 2, Californians Dr. Mollie Fry and Dale Schafer turned themselves in to begin serving five-year federal mandatory-minimum sentences. Fry, a breast-cancer survivor, and Schafer, a hemophiliac, were raided in 2001. In 2007, they were convicted of manufacturing and conspiracy charges for growing more than 100 plants over several years. “The Obama administration vigorously fought an appeal of their sentence,” says ASA.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-morgan/obama-medical-marijuana_b_857852.htmlOn the threats issued to state employees -
It's a sweeping intervention that instantly divorces the Obama Administration from its stated policy of not focusing resources on individuals who are clearly compliant with state law. Unlike the numerous recent dispensary raids, which could theoretically result from competing interpretations of state law, this new incursion constitutes a direct threat of arrest against state employees acting in good faith to administer perfectly lawful state programs.
The mindlessness of all this operates on multiple levels, beginning with the fact that no state employee or state-licensed business has ever actually been prosecuted for involvement with medical marijuana. The suggestion that they'd do such a thing is nothing more than a cynical scare tactic aimed at stalling the numerous state programs moving forward this year.If Obama has more important things to do, then he should BACK OFF on threats to the states.
The reality is that Obama is working to hinder enactment of the will of the people in various states that have voted for medical cannabis, just as he is hindering any forward movement on federal medical marijuana by SIMPLY having Holder reschedule cannabis - and by taking medical issues out of the hands of law enforcement - where they do not belong.
Medical cannabis is an issue for doctors, not law enforcement, to decide. Law enforcement has a vested interest in lies, as Michelle Leonhart has demonstrated repeatedly (tho, she has also indicated she would prefer to have alcohol prohibition in force in her "perfect" nightmare world, too, so wtf is she even doing in the position she holds? she's like a 19th century holdover from the saloon busters.)
Like you, I don't think it's a moral issue for Obama. I think it's a cynical giveaway to drug warriors, the federal govt's equivalent of civil war re-enactors, who benefit from putting innocent people in prison.
He wouldn't have to do one thing other than tell Holder to call for a rescheduling hearing, as the AMA has requested. Let evidence and science speak - Obama said he wasn't going to be anti-science, yet, here his administration is, just this last month, denying the medical benefits of cannabis.
The hypocrisy is so blatant now, with the DEA trying to do a reach around for big pharma, that Obama just looks like he's doing something like making it possible for pharma cos to make big profits at the expense of American's health, that sort of thing. Maybe that was part of the deal they reached before health care reform was ever put "on the table."