|
We Update Daily!
 Custom Search
Chris S. Kenoyer. Owner
MMJ Patient, Medical Activist,
Online Patients Advocate,
Online MMJ News Journalist
My Personal Medical Bio
Follow Us Now On Twitter
@MedicalMMJMan
Or Follow Us Now
On Facebook
Email Us Here
olpwebs@yahoo.com
Or Email Us Securely Here
MedicalMMJMan@countermail.com
NEW 100% Encrypted Email Server
OLP’s Free MMJ News EList
Get The Latest In MMJ News
All Press Contact Info For Us!
Is CBD? A Possible Cure For
Breast Cancer..? And All The Other
Many Forms & Types Of Cancer..?
Learn More About " CBD" Here
***************************
Advertise Here On OnlinePot
Rates As Low As $50 a Year
24/7 – 365 Days A Year Of Sales!
***********************************
Website Navigational Links
Main Start Page 2
**************************
Latest Marijuana News Reports
*********************************
Parody’s Cartoons US
Government Grown Pot,
Term Papers, School
Reports, & Thesis’s On
Marijuana & Cannabis
*********************************
Amsterdam A to Z
********************************
Canadian Marijuana Websites
*******************************
Church’s & Pot Cannabis
*****************************
Co-Ops, Clinics, Dispensary’s
*****************************
Marijuana Doctors & Clinics
****************************
Pot Cooking Recipes
****************************
Drug Testing A To Z
***************************
Pot Games
****************************
Pot Songs Video’s
****************************
100’s Of Grow Guides
***************************
Hash A- Z
***************************
Cannabis Legal Info, Drug
Lawyers, State, Federal Laws,
State & Supreme Court Rulings
**********************
POW’s Of The MMJ War!
*****************************
Other Marijuana Websites
Websites Link Exchange!
****************************
Medical Marijuana Studies,
Research Report’s, Medical
Cannabis Clinic Study’s
****************************
Parody’s & Cartoons
When We All Need A Good Laugh!
****************************
Avoiding Online MOM Scammers
Newly Re-Updated Info!
*****************************
The Politics Of Contraband
Medical Marijuana In The Mail?
******************************
The Hall Of Shame Section
The Online MOM Scammers
*****************************
Online MOM Providers Ads
****************************
Politicians & Voters Rights
****************************
Medical Marijuana, Strains
****************************
The OG Marijuana Strain Guide
****************************
800+ FAQ Growing Questions
****************************
Patients Spiritual Guidance,
Free Online Crisis Help Center
****************************
Online Marijuana Seed Banks
****************************
Maximum Security Section
Just Updated!
*****************************
Traveling Tips, Guides, B & B’s
****************************
Vaporizers A To Z
*****************************
Online Pot Video’s & Movies
**********************************************
Please Visit Our Sister Websites!
Maine Patients Coalition.org
Reefer Madness Teaching
Museum.org
Listen Right Here Online!
To Original 1930-1950’s
Reefer Madness Propaganda
Radio Shows And Programs
Before TV There Were
"Radio Stars"
*********************************
Legal Disclaimer
Guest Book
Translate Text or Web Page Go To:
Language Tools Google Translations
Article Submissions & News
Reports Are Always Gladly
Accepted Here.
1999-2013 Copyright ©
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this site maybe used or
reproduced in whole or in part
without the written consent of the
Copyright Owner
www.onlinepot.org
OnlinePot assumes no legal liability for any products, or information or
news posted, services offered, Or
any contests or give away’s offered.
|
|
OBAMA SHOULD GET ROLLING ON SENSIBLE MARIJUANA
For all of the keen intellect President Obama showed in his online town-hall meeting,
he didn’t seem to know much about reefer economics. When asked whether legalizing
marijuana might be a stimulus for the economy and job creation, he played the
question for laughs.
"I don’t know what this says about the online audience," he quipped as his studio audience chuckled and groaned. "But … this was a fairly popular question. We want to make sure that it was answered," he said.
Sure. So you could knock it.
"The answer is, no, I don’t think that is a good strategy to grow our economy."
No stimulus? Hey, more than a few blinged-out, Escalade-driving pot dealers would dispute that notion. You want "green" industry? Free the weed, dude.
Such is the call of such pro-pot politicians as California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who has proposed to legalize the weed, tax it and regulate it like booze. He estimates the move would generate $1 billion in revenue for the state’s troubled budget and save $150 million in enforcement costs.
It’s hard to argue with Ammiano’s logic, but it’s easy to make light of lighting up. Marijuana is, after all, funny. Few subjects inspire more bad puns from headline writers than those that, well, step on grass. A quick sample:
► "Obama: Nope to dope" ( Russia Today )
► "Obama’s Marijuana Buzz Kill" ( The Daily Beast online )
► "Marijuana issue suddenly smoking hot" ( Politico )
Like sex and sobriety, marijuana is funny because it is surrounded by so much hypocrisy. So is politics.
To listen to Obama’s chortles, for example, you’d never guess that he is our third president in a row to have admitted to using marijuana back in his years of youthful indiscretion.
Bill Clinton says he tried it but "didn’t inhale." Oh, sure. George W. Bush admitted to early pot use in a taped interview with a friend, but refuses to discuss it in public. Obama described his own teen drug use in poignant detail in his first memoir, but like countless other boomer dads now shies away from the subject.
Yet you would not guess from his snarky town-hall attitude that only a week earlier his Attorney General Eric Holder announced the federal Drug Enforcement Administration would stop raiding and arresting users or dispensers of medicinal marijuana unless they violated both state law and federal law.
That means you, California, and a dozen other states that allow marijuana sales and possession for medicinal purposes with a doctor’s recommendation.
Holder sensibly announced that DEA resources are too valuable in the war against dangerous drug lords to be raiding residents who otherwise are in compliance with state and local laws and standards. That would reverse the Bush administration’s ridiculous scorched-earth pursuit that ignored the right of states to govern themselves in such matters.
Yet convenient inconsistency is not limited to any one party or administration. A week after Holder’s notice – and the day before Obama laughed off the notion of legal reefers – DEA agents raided Emmalyn’s California Cannabis Clinic, a licensed medical marijuana collective in San Francisco.
DEA spokesmen claimed Emmalyn’s had violated local as well as federal law, but they didn’t say how. Local officials said they didn’t have a clue what DEA was talking about.
Not laughing is Charles Lynch, a celebrated cause since his Morro Bay, Calif., medical marijuana dispensary was raided by the DEA in 2007. Two days before Obama’s town hall, a federal judge postponed Lynch’s sentencing to await clarification of Team Obama’s new hands-off approach.
Lynch, who has no criminal record and was welcomed by the local mayor and business community, should be set free. Instead he’s in legal limbo, with both sides trying to make him a test case for their competing crusades.
Also not laughing are lawmakers in at least 10 states, including Obama’s home state of Illinois, who are debating whether and how they might join the 13 states where medical marijuana is legal.
If he really cares, Obama could end this reefer madness in much the same way Franklin Roosevelt ended the disastrous run of liquor prohibition in 1933. Prohibition had to go. It was too costly to enforce. It demoralized a public already beaten down by the Depression. It wasted a potential tax revenue-producing commodity by intruding unnecessarily into private lives of otherwise law-abiding Americans. Sounds familiar.
Unlike Roosevelt, President Obama does not have to amend the Constitution to end our marijuana confusion. He only has to get out of the way and allow the states to enforce their own drug laws. That’s not a laughable notion. It’s only sensible.
Pubdate: Thu, 02 Apr 2009
Source: Athens Banner-Herald (GA)
Copyright: 2009 Athens Newspapers Inc
Author: Clarence Page
Note: Clarence Page, a two-time Pulitizer Prize winner, is a Chicago
Tribune columnist and editorial board member.
|
Button Ads! 
