What Is President Obama's Problem With Medical Marijuana?

The Obama Administration is cracking down on medical marijuana dispensaries and growers.

Time:

For a brief moment in 2009, medical marijuana advocates exhaled. A new President had taken office promising to call off the federal prosecutors in states that had legalized weed for the sick. “What I’m not going to be doing is using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue,” Barack Obama had said during his presidential campaign. In his first year in office, the Justice Department told prosecutors not to focus on “individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.” Medical marijuana patients and the growing industry that supported them thought they were in the clear.

Read the whole story at Time

Comments

[leoejr]

11:50 AM on 05/08/2012

Here is one of the biggest reasons that Obama looks the other way.
http://www.patrickcrusade.org/prison_industry_in_USA.html
1.) Police Unions
2.) Private Prisons Corporations
3.) Alcohol and Beer Companies
4.) Pharmaceutical Corporations
5.) Prison Guard Unions
add 1,2, & 5 together and you get the picture. it is all about the money.

[stillinthegame]

11:16 AM on 05/06/2012

I am starting to wonder if the democrats are saving the issue of medical marijuana as a way to win the presidential campaign. I am noticing most of these bills are democrat sponsored. Yet you really never here them talk about it in a positive manner. It's about time they are finally doing something about it though. Now all we need is the federal government to recognize all these NEW state laws in regards to medical marijuana.

http://jokeofthedayblog.blogspot.com

[fumes]

06:56 PM on 05/03/2012

"Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
- Abraham Lincoln, December 1840
-------------------------
“Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.”
~ William F. Buckley Jr.
-------------------------
"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this."
~ Albert Einstein

[fumes]

06:50 PM on 05/03/2012

the NIH has a patent on it.

the NCI admits it shrinks tumors.

the FDA can't pick up the phone and call these two?

and the DEA is outright lying as is our President.

and we're all paying for this circus with our tax dollars!

[Jude Mcdonald]

02:52 PM on 05/03/2012

Time has come for the DEA to STOP raids. Time has come to legalize marijuana.

[rabiddog6708]

02:29 PM on 05/03/2012

Obama's problem is he rather send dr0nes to Pakistan than help ill Americans find relief.

[MyNameIsMickey]

02:19 PM on 05/03/2012

No haze here. The Liquor and Tobacco Lobby are easily as powerful as the Oil Lobby.

[SirReal1]

05:27 PM on 05/07/2012

Liquor, Tobacco, Paper, Cotton, and Pharmaceutical.

[Deep Thinking Man]

02:18 PM on 05/03/2012

hhmmm...if i read this right...the feds and state governments aren't getting together to discuss what to do in this matter !!!!!!...hhmmm...doesn't sound to me...that although we've given our opinions and thoughts to them...the politicians (all of them)...that our thoughts...opinions...and needs...(medical or otherwise) mean squat to all of them !!!!!!

[jchandjd]

02:06 PM on 05/03/2012

Obama faces two issues in this matter. He is not able to endorse medical marijuana without upsetting both some "niddle-of-the-roaders" who are against drugs as a policy; not to mention all of the "parents" who would cringe at the idea to legalize anything their children might smoke. Basically, he does not want to alienate the fuddy-duddies.

Second, anything that would legalize drugs also would upset big pharma (who would never allow you to grow any medicine in your own yard when they want you to pay thousands of your own dollars for their medicine) and it would also partly de-fund the criminal justice industrial complex (in which the prison industrial complex resides) and thereby create the loss of government law enforcement jobs and offend the right-wing crazed policing establishment.

Nope, Obama is stuck campagning against marijuana because all of those folks are registered voters and those who are pro-decriminalization either are not voting or not voting enough, or do not have money to contribute.

[Otaku1031]

01:29 AM on 05/04/2012

The President is badly advised. Someone told him that busting the MMJ dispensaries will get Repubs and undecided Independents to vote for him and he bought it. It won't help him - those who didn't vote for him in 2008 won't vote for him this year, either. It won't matter to them if he shuts down every MMJ dispensary in the U.S.
He's alienating the Progressive and Independent base in this country, not because of this issue but because of his willingness to ignore the will of the people when they vote to approve controversial issues.
There's too many people making too much money in MJ prohibition, and a good part of it ends up in our "representatives" pockets.

[anishinabe65]

06:38 PM on 05/04/2012

You are so right on! All you have to do in this country in follow the money! I have two dear freinds suffering from advanced stages of MS.......the absolute only thing that helps is marijuana......the pharmies their doctors wanted then to use had such horrendous side effects that made them three times as sick!!!!!

[jchandjd]

07:43 PM on 05/04/2012

Sorry to hear about that situation. You are correct as well. It is all about the money and neither repub. nor dem cares about any of the citizens. It is long overdue to throw BOTH sides out!

[RevRayGreen]

01:57 PM on 05/03/2012

Michelle's dad died from complications from MS. I have MS. Big O lacks the compassion that had me vote for him........

[deltalady]

02:48 PM on 05/03/2012

He's a sold out corporate puppet. And especially in an election year, he's not going to rock the boat. He doesn't have the courage for the difficult decisions other than hawkish foreign policy.

[Jennifer Mead]

06:22 PM on 05/03/2012

Most Americans support medical marijuana so I really don't see how this would hurt him.

[Carmen Madonna Campos]

01:36 PM on 05/03/2012

It is ingrained in the American psychic that cannabis is indeed "Reefer Madness".

Those fear videos from the 50's and 60's affected people in a very negative way - who truly believes that duck and cover would save you from a nuclear attack?
Right. Neither will Cannabis make you a stark raving mad drug-addled freaks.

LET MY PEOPLE TOKE!

[GoldwaterKid]

01:31 PM on 05/03/2012

He was very clear. He would not target 'individuals'..............anything else is okay with him.

Like Legal State Laws.

[FactsvsFear]

01:10 PM on 05/03/2012

America is NOT free. Having dancing with the stars and 40 different choices of potato chips to choose from is not freedom. We have been lead to believe these petty small things are true freedom. All the whole real personal freedom is taken from us daily.

[swfi]

12:42 PM on 05/03/2012

Maybe his problem is that a large number of stoners don't need it.

[Jennifer Mead]

06:22 PM on 05/03/2012

Not for him to decide.

[Chi Guevara]

07:27 PM on 05/03/2012

not for anyone to decide....pot before wine

[nvzephyr]

12:28 PM on 05/03/2012

Why are we not legalizing industrial hemp???? Please -- if you have not already done so -- educate yourself about this important issue now.

[fumes]

04:46 PM on 05/03/2012

you mean like this:

Hemp Produces Viable Biodiesel, Study Finds
October 6, 2010 By Christine Buckley

(PhysOrg.com) -- Industrial hemp, which grows in infertile soils, is attractive as a potential source of sustainable diesel fuel.

Of all the various uses for Cannabis plants, add another, “green” one to the mix.
Researchers at UConn have found that the fiber crop Cannabis sativa, known as industrial hemp, has properties that make it viable and even attractive as a raw material, or feedstock, for producing biodiesel – sustainable diesel fuel made from renewable plant sources.
The plant’s ability to grow in infertile soils also reduces the need to grow it on primary croplands, which can then be reserved for growing food, says Richard Parnas, a professor of chemical, materials, and biomolecular engineering who led the study.
http://www.physorg.com/news205599757.html