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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2009

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PROFILE

Biden the
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OPINION

Obama's Pot Answer Too Dismissive

By John Johnson| Posted Mar 26, 09 8:41 PM CDT|

(Newser) – President Obama drew chuckles today for his comments about legalizing marijuana—it's not a "good strategy to grow the economy"—but critics say he was too dismissive of a serious issue. "His answer was a non-answer," writes Andrew Sullivan in his Daily Dish blog at the Atlantic. "I'm tired of having the prohibition issue treated as if it's trivial or a joke. It is neither. It is about freedom and it's deadly serious. As for your online audience, Mr. President, have you forgotten who got you elected?"

At the pro-legalization NORML blog, Paul Armentano agrees. "Obama’s cynical rebuff was short-sighted and disrespectful to a large percentage of his supporters. After all, was it not this very same 'online audience' that donated heavily to Obama’s presidential campaign?" The Christian Science Monitor rounded up Twitter replies along the same vein and also found this: "On the bright side, Obama could have ignored the marijuana questions. He definitely just injected the subject into the political debate."

[Images (2)]

[Videos (1)]

A police officer stands amid marijuana plants found in a greenhouse at a ranch in Tecate, Mexico, Thursday, March 12, 2009. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)

Marijuana plants are seen in a room of a house raided in Tijuana, Mexico, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)

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President Obama comments on the marijuana voters. (YouTube)

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25 comments

VIEWING:

Fondue
Mar 26, 09 8:57 PM CDT

Dear Medicinal Potheads, The answer is still "no". Decriminalizing, legalizing, or any other -izing of weed will not save the economy -- the main crisis at hand. One might argue the taxes that could be imposed on sales. It won't be like cigarettes at all, it would be considerably more; quelling purchases. Reply

-1

IN RESPONSE:

Collusive
Mar 26, 09 9:02 PM CDT

obviously, you doin't smoke weed...

IN RESPONSE:

northeast
Mar 26, 09 9:08 PM CDT

I'm confident that the increase in the sales of Cool Ranch Doritos as a result of such a policy would be enough to get us back on track.

| 0 minutes ago

Fondue
Mar 26, 09 9:39 PM CDT

Obviously I doIn't anymore. And I doIn't think I'll need it in the future. Also, if decriminalizing weed will end the "war next door", then it would end it if people stopped using it. Wait a second, that would mean potheads are to blame for all the killing going on. Reply

IN RESPONSE:

airron14
Mar 26, 09 10:19 PM CDT

I suppose you're against the legalization of Tobacco, which is much more deadly than Marijuana, and Alcohol, which is much more impairing than Marijuana.

IN RESPONSE:

AnnieChrist
Mar 26, 09 10:32 PM CDT

Great thinking, unimpeachable logic. If Dr King had just obeyed the law regarding segregation, we wouldn't have had all those lynchings and church bombings, ergo Dr King is responsible for these hideous acts. If the Jews had just stayed in their houses out of sight, and not tried to be productive citizens, there would not have been a holocaust, that apparently by your logic, they themselves caused. Repressive legislation results in injurious consequences, and the responsibility for those consequences lie at the door of those passing the repressive legislation not those who protest it or choose to disobey it, especially when the law tries to suppress something as basic as personal choice or regulation of one's lifestyle.

IN RESPONSE:

jeebus
Mar 27, 09 12:57 AM CDT

Maybe some day when you get cancer, and you will (karma is a bitch), you may have a different perspective on the medicinal marijuana issue.

IN RESPONSE:

gregconquest
Mar 27, 09 7:13 AM CDT

Fondue, the issue is that one can be stopped; the other can't. We've been sustaining a MASSIVE drug war for decades, and drug use has not gone down as a result. America is more drugged up than the Netherlands, where you can buy grass in coffeeshops. So, we've not been able to stop people from getting high. What's the other side? Stopping the government's war. We CAN do that. Imagine peace, dude! The war is expensive!

| 0 minutes ago

AnnieChrist
Mar 26, 09 10:48 PM CDT

And a postscript: The darling of the conservatives, Ayn Rand once observed: The most important function of a government is to rid society of the criminal elements in it. However, once this is accomplished, in its desire to keep power, the government must create more criminals, doing so by criminalizing personal choices and lifestyles. Reply

| 0 minutes ago

Fondue
Mar 26, 09 11:52 PM CDT

My point is that it would not end the violence of drug cartels. And, that almost every time someone lights up a spliff, they are helping these cartels wage their little war. But maybe we should follow northeast's idea and just go buy some chips. Like that's really going to help. Reply

IN RESPONSE:

AnnieChrist
Mar 27, 09 1:37 AM CDT

The person lighting up the spliff would much prefer that their money be going to the US treasury than to a Columbian drug lord, but the narrow-mindedness of American lawmakers does not allow that. If there had never been prohibitions against alcohol, gambling and prostitution, there would never have been an Al Capone or organized crime families (aka cartels) in this country. When ignorant ass laws are passed by ignorant ass lawmakers trying to impose their version of what constitutes righteous living, they are responsible for the consequences when humans do the natural human thing and not obey the ignorant ass law.

IN RESPONSE:

jeebus
Mar 27, 09 3:06 AM CDT

Are you like Stephen Colbert? This has got to be shtick. You can't be fucking serious. The point of legalizing pot is also to free up resources to fight dangerous drugs like heroin and cocaine.

IN RESPONSE:

northeast
Mar 27, 09 8:15 AM CDT

Cartels make money from the sale of marijuana not because it's a natural commodity (it isn't, it grows literally almost anywhere) but because they're the only ones with enough capital and structure to smuggle. I don't think we'd make much money from taxing pot (how are you going to tax something that I can hypothetically grow in my backyard?), but we would be dealing a serious blow to organized crime by taking away their artificial monopoly.

| 0 minutes ago

jeebus
Mar 26, 09 11:57 PM CDT

If Obama wants to be a one term president, this is a great way to start. Reply

| 0 minutes ago

justapirate
Mar 27, 09 12:29 AM CDT

If anything, it would end the billions that are being wasted to "fight" the drug war against pot. Reply

| 0 minutes ago

maevealleine
Mar 27, 09 4:17 AM CDT

i am a huge fan of obama, however i found his comments dismissive and rather insulting. HOWEVER, i also know that in the scheme of things, it's really not that important...for NOW. when we are at a time of more peace, wealth and stability i fully expect this to become a major debate. Reply

IN RESPONSE:

northeast
Mar 27, 09 8:16 AM CDT

It's important if you're a Mexican...

| 0 minutes ago

sache
Mar 27, 09 7:37 AM CDT

Whine,whine, complain, complain, At least the man is listening. The last administration wouldn't have bothered. Obama is is not a miracle worker. Give him a chance to think through the issues and come up with a workable plan. Reply

IN RESPONSE:

northeast
Mar 27, 09 8:17 AM CDT

While his policy in this area will undoubtedly be an improvement, I'm worried that he basically just slammed the door on the legalization/decriminalization question.

| 0 minutes ago

Fondue
Mar 27, 09 8:58 AM CDT

Gregconquest, you bring up a great point. But here's what I don't get, potheads want to smoke even at the expense of their own country. I completely agree that if their was no WOD that we might not have this problem and associated problems like overcrowded prisons. But the reality is we are where we are, and no one is willing to sacrifice for the sake of their country. If there wasn't the American market funding these people, they would go somewhere else. The US could quietly decriminalize and a new US industry could emerge. But no, they got to have their smoke and they have to have it now - even at the expense of some unknown persons life. What you fail to see Greg is that I AM imagining peace dude, but I see it as a collective effort, and the potheads don't care about anyone other than themselves and won't sacrifice for others. Look, I'm not against anyone getting their smoke. Annie, I agree that pot money going into the Treasury would be better and that prohibitionist lawmakers took way too much liberty in their actions. But I disagree with you on the notion that there would have never been organized-crime in the US if it were not for these laws. The US mafia has it’s origin in extortion, loan-sharking, prostitution, robbery, kidnapping, and murder, as well as drugs and alcohol. So to say that it was 1920’s Prohibition (the ban on alcohol sale, manufacture, and transportation) that brought on organized-crime is fundamentally false. The mafia was already doing other bad stuff along with the sale of drugs. Reply

IN RESPONSE:

gregconquest
Mar 27, 09 10:16 AM CDT

Fondue, you're setting up a straw man in assuming grass smokers to be the stereotypical "potheads". Most grass users I've met use the stuff moderately -- better than most beer drinkers I know ;-) So to blame "them" for be willing to hurt America is missing the point. And then, if you want people to sacrifice for their country, how about asking and pleading and leading? You're condoning criminalizing non-sacrifice. (What a sentence...) You're saying people who aren't willing to sacrifice their "over-exuberant" pursuit of pleasure should be put in jail! Your counter-example of what we can do to lessen the drug problem, your analysis thereof, is not hitting on all cylinders. And cutting to the chase, again I tell you, you're not going to be able to stop people from smoking grass. It is *relatively* harmless for adults -- less harmful than alcohol. The harm in smoking grass comes from the self-righteous attempt at stopping people from doing something they're going to do anyway. You're fighting an unwinnable, and unnecessary war. Peace indeed, Fondue.

IN RESPONSE:

oaktree777
Mar 28, 09 8:58 AM CDT

The mafia was already doing other bad stuff along with the sale of drugs. - which then became MORE PRFOTABLE precisely BECAUSE of the prohibition on it. You obviously don't get it. It's really a very simple economic, supply and demand problem. Right now, it's illegal, artificially inflating the price and therefore the profits made. Were it legal and available in large quantities without all the "overhead" associated with evading law enforcement, the price, and the profits would be less appealing to the criminal element. I don't have to risk my butt selling it anymore because you can get it anywhere. The mafia and organized crime most definitely benefit from this prohibition.

| 0 minutes ago

Forderon
Mar 27, 09 11:37 AM CDT

I'm all for decriminalizing and taxing pot, but is everyone just going to ignore that these drug cartels smuggle more than just pot? Cocaine and other illicit drugs are their cash crops, marijuana is just their market entry drug. If you take the marijuana business away from them, they will just push the other, much worse, drugs harder. Everyone wants to make this a simplistic argument as if its open and shut. Maybe Obama is opposed to it for this very reason. Reply

IN RESPONSE:

oaktree777
Mar 28, 09 9:01 AM CDT

But if your not spending resources on the largest user group - pot heads - you've freed those resources to be used for other, more insidious, harder drugs - like cocaine, etc. Same with jail space, justice system, etc etc. Pot heads are clogging the justice system for no good reason!

| 0 minutes ago

charliedoodle
Mar 27, 09 6:20 PM CDT

When 92 yr. old ladies and 20 yr. old college students are KILLED because they MIGHT be smoking pot; then it IS a SERIOUS QUESTION! Reply

| 0 minutes ago

View all 25 comments »

marijuana • marijuana legalization • online • town hall meeting • President Obama • Howard Stern Grid

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