Pubdate: Wed, 04 Feb 2009
Source: CounterPunch (US Web)
Copyright: 2009 CounterPunch
Contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Website: http://www.counterpunch.org/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3785
Author: Fred Gardner
Note: author edits O'Shaughnessy's, a pro-cannabis doctors journal
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/campaign.htm (ONDCP Media Campaign)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/walters.htm (Walters, John)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Cited: http://norml.org http://mpp.org http://drugpolicy.org et al.

POT SHOTS OBAMA'S MIXED MESSAGES ON MARIJUANA

Two days after Barack Obama became President, DEA agents led a raid on a
South Lake Tahoe dispensary run by a wheelchair-bound entrepreneur named
Ken Estes. They seized about five pounds of cannabis and a few thousands
dollars. They arrested no one. "It was a typical rip-and-run" said a
friend who had spoken with Estes.

In years past, when dispensaries run by Estes had been closed by law
enforcement, activists would tsk-tsk about the looseness of his management
style, as if Estes had drawn the heat on himself. This time Ol' Ken was
seen as a brave, tax-paying victim and scorn was directed at the DEA for
ignoring Obama's alleged promise to end such raids. A few verbal militants
blamed the new President himself for not seeing to it that his "promise"
was kept from the day he took office. What, if anything, has Obama
promised with respect to the marijuana laws? A message posted on the Obama
for America website after Nov. 4 disparaged DEA raids on dispensaries, but
the syntax is garbled, the objection is to individual patients getting
arrested, and the authorship is anonymous and unofficial: "Many states
have laws that condone medical marijuana, but the Bush Administration is
using federal drug enforcement agents to raid these facilities and arrest
seriously ill people. Focusing scarce law enforcement resources on these
patients who pose no threat while many violent and highly dangerous drug
traffickers are at large makes no sense. Senator Obama will not continue
the Bush policy when he is president."

On the campaign trail when Obama was asked by a Willamette Week reporter,
"Would you stop the DEA's raids on Oregon medical marijuana growers?" he
replied, "I would because I think our federal agents have better things to
do, like catching criminals and preventing terrorism. The way I want to
approach the issue of medical marijuana is to base it on science, and if
there is sound science that supports the use of medical marijuana and if
it is controlled and prescribed in a way that other medicine is
prescribed, then it's something that I think we should consider."

In March 2008, also in Oregon (where a primary win would give him the
nomination), Obama told Gary Nelson of the Medford Mail Tribune:

"When it comes to medical marijuana, I have more of a practical view than
anything else. My attitude is that if it's an issue of doctors prescribing
medical marijuana as a treatment for glaucoma or as a cancer treatment, I
think that should be appropriate because there really is no difference
between that and a doctor prescribing morphine or anything else.

"I think there are legitimate concerns in not wanting to allow people to
grow their own or start setting up mom and pop shops because at that point
it becomes fairly difficult to regulate. [Obama must have gotten input
from parties that don't like the way cannabis is produced and distributed
in Oregon, California and the other mmj states.]

"Again, I'm not familiar with all the details of the initiative that was
passed [in Oregon] and what safeguards there were in place, but I think
the basic concept that using medical marijuana in the same way, with the
same controls as other drugs prescribed by doctors, I think that's
entirely appropriate...

"I would not punish doctors if it's prescribed in a way that is
appropriate. That may require some changes in federal law. I will tell you
that  --  I mean I want to be honest with you+/-whether I want to use a
whole lot of political capital on that issue when we're trying to get
health care passed or end the war in Iraq, the likelihood of that being
real high on my list is not likely... What I'm not going to be doing is
using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this
issue simply because I want folks to be investigating violent crimes and
potential terrorism. We've got a lot of things for our law enforcement
officers to deal with."

Two Misleading Assumptions

Obama's comment about using his political capital to achieve more
important goals was said in a tone and accompanied by a smile that
conveyed, "This is a reality that you and I both understand..." But it's a
self-fulfilling reality that involves two misleading assumptions. You and
I and Barack Obama and Nelson of the Mail-Tribune know that the polls
consistently show 75-80% of the American people wanting the marijuana laws
to allow medical use. Relatively few voters woud be alienated if the new
President directed the DEA to respect the relevant state laws --or if his
Attorney General classified marijuana as something other than a Schedule-1
drug. Those steps would not be unpopular with the masses and taking them
would only cost Obama "political capital" if he's defining it as something
other than "popular support." So he must be referring to his political
capital vis-a-vis the corporate elites and a Congress that does their
bidding.

And why assume ending marijuana prohibition would be a less significant
political achievement than reforming the healthcare system or getting US
troops out of Iraq? Looking back at the changes effected in 1932, ending
alcohol prohibition doesn't seem trivial compared to the public works
projects and economic reforms instituted by FDR in response to the
depression.

If and when impediments to medical marijuana use are removed and the
American people begin to avail themselves of it en masse, the
pharmaceutical manufacturers will lose a third or more of their sales.

This unspoken consequence of legalizing medical marijuana is a certainty.
Want proof? Doctors who have monitored cannabis use by hundreds of
thousands of patients in California and Oregon can document a consistent
pattern of decreased use of pharmaceuticals ­a 50% reduction of opioid
use, for example. Recall that the present depression was precipitated by a
small drop in housing prices. The demise of Big Pharma would, in and of
itself, impel healthcare reform.

Our prevailing "healthcare system" has been configured to maximize
drug-company profits, not the well-being of the American people. Ken Estes
said it perfectly to KTVU's Patti Lee, who did a piece about the raid that
shut him down: "I know Obama's got really serious issues. This is actually
one of the serious issues…" The Jan. 22 raid in South Lake Tahoe might
have been averted if drug-policy reform lobbyists in Washington had clout
with Obama's transition team. They didn't. George Soros and Peter Lewis
paid --millions in campaign contributions-- but their operatives didn't
get to "play…" Whether the feds will continue to raid California growers
and distributors should be clarified when a new DEA Administrator is
nominated by Attorney General Eric Holder and appears before the Senate
Judiciary Committee chaired by Pat Leahy of Vermont.

Desperately Seeking Drug Czar

Former Biden aide Chris Putala  -- a former boyfriend of Anne Coulter --
is one of two transition team members in charge of finding a new director
for the Office of National Drug Control Policy, i.e., drug czar. On
Inauguration Day the White House quietly named an acting interim director
--  Ed Jurith, who has been ONDCP's chief counsel since 1994. Jurith
served as placeholder czar in the year-long interregnum between Gen. Barry
McCaffrey and John Walters. In the 1980s Jurith helped draft the Anti-Drug
Abuse Acts creating the ONDCP (and mandatory minimums, and the sentencing
disparity between crack and powder cocaine, among other cruel provisions).
Sen. Joe Biden sponsored legislation creating the Acts.

The other transition teamer involved in the drug czar search is Dr. Don
Vereen, a former ONDCP functionary who has expressed disdain for doctors
who approve cannabis use.

Nor one of the reform lobbies ­- not NORML, Americans for Safe Access, the
Drug Policy Alliance, or the Marijuana Policy Project --  has called for
abolishing the Drug Czar's office and putting drug policy under the
Surgeon General, where it belongs. Their honchos will all say privately
that they agree, of course, that the Drug Czar's office has done nothing
but spread Prohibitionist propaganda from its inception. But calling for
its abolition would cost them their coveted ­- and illusory -- "seat at
the table."
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Doug


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