Obama's inexplicable and unreasonable policy reversal on medical marijuana (MMJ) betrays him as a cold-hearted political con-man who views the Presidency as a pulpit from which to lecture the populace about the law, i.e. "federal law trumps state law" in the name of using government force to protect the profit interests of the pharmaceutical industry and criminal justice system. While this is true, it is a rigid, academic oversimplication that ignores context, as well as the 10th Amendment, which grants states rights that the federal government cannot violate. The supremecy of federal law over state law was established in the 1848 Supreme Court decision of Marbury vs. Madison in which the court ruled S. Carolina didn't have the right to secede from the Union. It is beyond me how anyone--much less a so-called legal expert--could equate medical marijuana use with seceding from the Union; thus the parallel is irrevelent because the contexts have nothing in common. First, to give the go ahead to MMJ and then reverse policy two years later is sinister, deceptive, and politically dysfunctional. Obama should be focusing on the debt, the never-ending wars, and the stagnating and possibly collapsing economy. Juveniles are kept in isolation cells for three days longer than the law states they may kept in these facilities. What is Obama doing about that? What is he doing about mountain-top removal? What has he done to punish the investment banks and their treasonous ruining of the economy for the indefinite future?
Obama's policy reversal on MMJ also shows that like every President since Carter, he sees the Federal government as serving no purpose other than to beat down the people and keep the rich insulated from worldwide financial turbulence. His presidency has been about giving billions more to business owners while unemployment remains stagnant, keeping the wars going, and then sticking it to the people after having done nothing to help them find work or keep their homes for the last three years (Yeah, I know, it's the Republicans, blah, blah, blah). Our credit has been downgraded for the first time in the country's history.
Obama's policy reversal on MMJ is based on the allegation that the MMJ industry has been hijacked by for-profit organizations. Well, no kidding. This is America, and our economy is driven by profit. MMJ operations are expensive and owners invest as much as half a million dollars to start dispensaries and keep them in operation. Meanwhile, our military has been hijacked by for-profit organizations, as has our criminal justice system, and our health care system, but Obama coddles these profiteers, whose agendas have led to a trillion dollar deficit, rising health care and education costs, and economic stagnation. Finally, Obama's 180 on MMJ shows he has no interest in making policy based on reason or empirical evidence. To say, for example, the accident rates in MMJ states is significantly higher than in non-MMJ states, or that opitate use has soared in those states, or high school students are flunking out--e.g. MMJ states live in a "pot haze"--might make for reasonable grounds to revisit MMJ policy. But none of these things has happened and that's exactly why MMJ threatens the status quo: it works perfectly well, and has shown that legalization is the next best move. The states that have the worst opiate and prescription drug addiction--Kentucky, West Virginia, Florida, etc. are ones that remain in a prohibitionist dark age. But Obama wants to keep things the same. One has to wonder where "Obamacon"--who is half African-American--would be if that had been the mentality of the country's leaders since 1848.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
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