Cannabis Political Situation

March 30, 2013
Cannabis Reform Medical and Recreational Uses











I am going to start a weekly blog that will cover one of my six causes: Cannabis and the War on Drugs; Food and it's healing properties; Military actions good and bad; Our government and where we are headed; BIG Pharma; and Education.
This first weekly blog will be on the fight for Cannabis legalization and its medical uses.

Last November, with voters in Colorado and Washington State leading the way, ballot initiatives legalizing, taxing, and regulating recreational marijuana use passed for the first time ever!
Now marijuana reform is popping up in state legislatures across the country. Once the pet project of a few fringe figures, it has attracted a new generation of politicians from both parties with credible national aspirations. Even some Republicans see an opportunity to capitalize on a constituency that shocked the pundit class with its financial and grassroots muscle -- not to mention sophisticated campaign tactics -- just a few months ago.
"We initially thought that within a few years we'd have the whole issue taken care of," says Keith Stroup, a co-founder of NORML. Eleven politically and geographically diverse states, including Alaska, New York, and Mississippi, decriminalized the drug after an official report from Richard Nixon's National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse found what a plurality of Americans now take for granted: it's not as harmful than alcohol.
"We assumed that when social change like this begins to happen, that it probably accelerates and continues right on through," Stroup says. "Obviously, we were quite mistaken."
Instead, the 1980s heralded the modern War on Drugs, when federal expenditures on the project skyrocketed, First Lady Nancy Reagan came out with her "Just Say No" campaign, and the imperative of disrupting the drug trade began to flow in American foreign policy. The national mood shifted in such a way that forced one of President Reagan's own Supreme Court nominees, federal Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, to withdraw from consideration after it emerged that he had smoked pot in college and as a law professor in his 20s.
Now, for the first time in decades, legalization advocates can see the light at the end of the tunnel once again. "There's been a sea change," says Earl Blumenauer, the Democratic congressman from Oregon, in 1973, helped push through our country's first decriminalization law. "I'm absolutely convinced that in the next four or five years, it's going to pass the point of no return," he stated, after which the federal government is likely to decide to treat the drug more like alcohol, passing tax-and-regulate legislation after the states force its hand. The fact remains that even if the states are the ones moving fastest on this issue, the tone in Washington has shifted, too.
Obama's emergence has arguably accelerated legalization by drawing these groups into the center of the political conversation. The demographic trends look promising to veterans of the cause, most of whom expect to be able to claim an effective national victory within the next decade as the older voters who remain the fiercest opponents of legalization die and young people who embrace it enthusiastically join the voter rolls. Bypassing state legislatures, despite members' increased willingness to debate reform bills this year, remains the preferred plan of attack. Florida is one tempting prospect.
Advocate around the country have muscled their way onto the agenda by forging alliances with respected local organizations, elected officials, and even religious leaders who vouch for the cause and help reduce its political toxicity. Rather than arguing for the right to get high, they have settled on a more pragmatic approach, framing the issue as one of redirecting scarce law-enforcement resources and capturing new revenue during a time of harsh austerity measures by local and state governments, even if some economists are skeptical legalized pot will prove to be a cash cow.
This notion of taxing and regulating is becoming very powerful with the general public, women tend to be more nervous than men with this, yet women are the core education funders, and the idea of putting cash into the education system, which the Colorado law promises to do , is very popular. Recent polls found that national support for cannabis legalization have cracked the 50% mark, which is emboldening the supporters a good deal.
Young people seem to favor the liberalization of drug laws as do labor unions. They recognize potential new members among pot workers suggest the constituency might be wrapped under the Democratic tent. On the other hand, with some Republican leaders toying with the idea of de-emphasizing social conservatism after getting slapped around in November, moving on pot is appealing in some quarters of the right as well.
The Republican coalition is obviously unable to attract enough popular support to stay in power. Congressmen such as Dana Rohrabacher, a conservative Republican from Orange County, California, is one of a handful of voices in the party urging a more libertarian approach on the issue.
It definitely would not be a seamless process for the GOP to jump on the pot-reform bandwagon when polls show 65-70% of the Republicans opposes legalization. But the 80+ year old Pat Robertson came out for legalization just last year. His stance suggests that the three stools of the Republican party might hold up just fine with a pot plank, which would sit just fine with the party’s state’s rights philosophy and was advocated by Milton Friedman, the conservative economic godfather.
The Republicans have the opportunity to use this signifier, especially the generation under the age of 40. This means that even if the party remains determined to for the time being to avoid being branded the “pro-pot” party, a few up-and-comers making a move on legalization or at least decriminalization could be a fairly harmless way to improve their standings with the younger voters.
Rand Paul better personifies this hope than any other Republican in the top-tier leaders. Much like his father, Ron Paul, the Kentucky senator wants to end the War on drugs, and has called for the States to decide for themselves, much as Washington and Colorado have done. After the straw poll at last month’s CPAC suggests, there is a growing constituency for his brand of Republicanism.
Rand Paul has had more impact in the last three weeks than his father did in three presidential campaigns. A campaign centered around, in large part, on marijuana amendment, in hopes to gather the younger vote would not be a bad idea, as well as marriage equality.
Even as we feel closer than ever to our ultimate prize, legalization still faces a tough fight for us. All of this is fraught with uncertainty, especially since not a single word of the Controlled Substance Act has changed. The Department of Justice still has not released an official response to the new laws in Colorado and Washington. The DoJ has been in discussions with the two governors for several months now. Most think a decision will come from Eric Holder at anytime now, since he has promised recently at a recent hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
There could always be a backlash. The feds do not want a system where Colorado replaces Mexico as a source of marijuana for the entire country which is possible and could happen.
The DEA has been very active in Colorado for years raiding medical marijuana facilities, and the grow your own provision in Amendment 64, Colorado’s legalization initiative, is a generous one.
California is already a clusterfuck, and the voters don’t care, according to the Field poll that recently found a healthy majority of voters there on board with legalization of recreational use after rejecting it in 2010 and despite de facto legalization already being in place via the state’s lax medical program. But even if the administration defies the gang of former DEA agents, some of whom now make their living in the private sector of the Drug War, clamoring for a federal injunction and essentially allows the states to proceed, advocates don’t expect Obama to engage on behalf of the cause – even though he was a member of the Choom Gang. That will be laid in the lap of the Democrats next candidate for president. This will be tempted to develop some kind of coherent stance that squares with the reality that at least some of those voting for him/her will simultaneously be voting to legalize cannabis. Cannabis legalization is a tangible reality now and a new crop of politicians on the left and right is acting accordingly.