When Obama's supporters come to volunteer this evening, they will be greeted by a crowd holding political signs. It's not an Occupy protest or a Republican rally -0 it's a rally in support of medical marijuana access, organized by voters who feel left out of the electoral debate. From Washington, D.C. to Washington State, from New York City to Denver, Colorado, patients and their supporters will be asking, how can I vote against my health in November?
My organization, Americans for Safe Access, has been engaging voters since July with our Camp WakeUpObama campaign, helping to give a voice to patients and their families. Today campers mark the end of summer with nationwide rallies outside of Obama's campaign offices, because we're not being invited inside. Things would be different if the President would apply his campaign slogan, "Forward," to our cause: stopping the raids and prosecutions of state-permitted institutions, and moving public health policy forward by ending the conflict between state and federal law.
I can't ignore the fact that many responses to Camp WakeUpObama have been critical and to those of you who disapprove I ask, what else are patients supposed to do? In asking President Obama to fulfill his stated policy of respecting state compassionate use laws, we are not asking him to do anything unpopular: 80% of Americans support safe access to medical cannabis, 74% are against the stepped-up raids and prosecutions and Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is polling at 7% in Colorado campaigning on this issue. Even two-thirds of Republicans support state medical cannabis laws. With the public on our side, why should patients and our loved ones be silent?
Camp WakeUpObama is not about encouraging people to vote for Romney or any other challenger, but about expressing our own points of view. When I wrote during the Democratic National Convention that pro-marijuana candidate Gary Johnson's poll numbers could make him a spoiler in the crucial swing state of Colorado, I wasn't criticizing third-party supporters, I was showing Democrats the proof that their standard-bearer's wrong-headed cannabis crackdown is costing the party votes. I never thought that Mitt Romney's campaign would be emailing reporters our talking points or that his vice-presidential nominee would publicly support state decisions on marijuana law. Though a lot has happened in the past few months, it's not too late for Obama to seize the issue.
Many of us want to be supporters of the President, to be a part of his movement. Obama has done great things for other patients but for my medical needs, which include cannabis, treatment has become only less affordable and more limited. When we listened to DNC speakers praise health care reforms for helping family members receive organ transplants, it was a painful reminder that our community had just buried Norman Smith, a man denied a transplant because of his doctor-recommended medical marijuana therapy. It was saddening to hear speaker after speaker talk about Obama expanding access to health care, when the same man ordered the destruction of our access to vital medicine. And it was frustrating to watch Obama's now-infamous Harold and Kumar video, in which he asked fictional stoners for support while turning his back on real-life medical marijuana patients.
In four years, Obama's DEA has taken action against far more medical marijuana facilities than during the eight years of Bush. Despite promises to govern according to science rather than politics, his administration is going to court to contend that marijuana has "no accepted medical use." And all of these raids, prosecutions, threatening letters, and asset forfeitures have occurred while Obama's Attorney General denies following an anti-medical cannabis policy. At least George W. Bush and John Ashcroft admitted they were waging a war on us.
Camp WakeUpObama brings forward the voices of those who feel conflicted about voting for someone who is prosecuting members of their community and closing down their trusted sources of medicine. I'm not a one-issue voter, but I should be able to vote for someone who cares about my health. I know that ordinary patients can make a difference - after all, it was the $20 donor who elected Obama.
It's 46 days before the election, and the President is having a good week. But support for Gary Johnson and the closeness of the race make Obama's unpopular medical cannabis crackdown an unnecessary roadblock to his reelection.
So today medical marijuana patients rally to wake up Obama and wake up his supporters. We want the President to apply his campaign slogan "forward" to medical cannabis: it is popular, it is good medicine, and it is good policy.
Follow Steph Sherer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/stephsherer
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 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGqwc1wMVFI
Obviously, Obama needs to know how important this issue is to his base - so I'm not sure why people feel threatened when people simply bring this issue to his attention - and YES, he did promise to respect state's rights and we need to know if he is going to honor that promise before the elections. For now, I intend to vote for Gary Johnson because I know where he stands.
Obama not only said he would respect state's rights - he said he thought marijuana should be "decriminalized." I have the footage. But under his administration, for the first time, landlords who rent space to dispensaries have been given letters from DOJ that they would proceed with forfeiture of their property if they did not evict dispensary tenants. A lease is a binding contract with the dispensary owner... so if landlords evict, the dispensary owner can sue. but if they don't evict, the feds will (and have) seize property of completely innocent landlords. No other administration has stooped to that level. It may not be Obama who is leading the charge, but his DOJ/DEA is now resorting to old Anslinger style tactics of terrorizing people - only this time, WE WILL NOT BE SILENT! When the DEA raided Oaksterdam, that's when I knew I had to wake up and fight back. Shame on you, "Weed Activist" for you are truly an impostor.
without the phony threats they created to scare us all.
and i'll be really poed..
if Norton turns out to be behind all the viruses
Just like the DoD said to him when he got in the white house- you are not going to stop any wars unless we tell you too, then they threw the AEI/Bush Iraq war plan at him.
Dan Choi did his campaign late last year and NEVER launched a propaganda smear campaign into swing states with posters that lie about what Obama actually said. Creating a campaign based on falsehoods is no way to get anyone's attention.
While the ARE alternatives to the two party system, unfortunately no President since Millard Fillmore of the Whig Party in 1850 has been anything but a Republican or a Democrat, so history is not really on your side on that one. I am all for the emergence of a third party, but it simply has not happened and will not happen between now and November. So while there are "alternatives," the reality is that none are viable in any sense of the word.
How will you feel when the new President decides to push for a DOMA-style Constitutional amendment?
How will you feel when you have to look at this new President on the television. a President who talks in bumper sticker slogans, while being divisive. ideologically driven, and grossly arrogant, and who governs with regard to his own base and not all Americans?
How will you feel when the new President refuses to hold any discussion with labor, or to have anything to do with them?
How will you feel when the new President ignores the United Nations, and becomes their nemesis?
How will you feel when the new President decides that the Afghanistan timetable for bringing our troops home shouldn’t be followed?
How will you feel when the new President reverses the ban on torture?
How will you feel when the new President resumes the Star Wars program?
How will you feel when the new President cuts federal education spending, and pushes vouchers?
How will you feel when the new President declines to identify who comes to the White House?
How will you feel when the new President pushes to reverse the FDA tobacco disclosure rules?
How will you feel when the new President advocates to deny national funding to NPR and Planned Parenthood, and the National Endowment for the Arts?
How will you feel when the new President increases taxes on the working poor, and decreases taxes on corporations, capital gains and the estate tax?
How will you feel when the new President pushes to abolish the EPA, the Department of Education, and the FAA?
How will you feel when the new President denies climate change?
How will you feel when the new President sells federal lands to pay down the deficit?