Obama, Fool Me Once, Shame On You; Fool Me Twice, Shame On Me

GQ’s article “In His Second Term, Obama Will Pivot to the Drug War” made its way around the Internet yesterday and sparked plenty of conversations amongst weedists. The meat of the article that has everyone excitedly talking is:

According to ongoing discussions with Obama aides and associates, if the president wins a second term, he plans to tackle another American war that has so far been successful only in perpetuating more misery: the four decades of The Drug War.

This is of course sounds fantastic, but after Obama’s 2008 marijuana campaign promises and doing a complete 180 on those very words, talk is extremely cheap on the topic of marijuana. The number of raids on dispensaries has dramatically increased during his 1st term as President. Obama has used the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Internal Revenue Service, and the US Attorneys Office in a combined attack with devastating effects on medical marijuana dispensaries operating legally under state law, even though he said he wouldn’t squander Federal resources on it. Whereas Obama admits the war on drugs has not been effective, Obama has made clear he is not in favor of marijuana legalization, nor will he support it.

Without seeing a definitive effort before the election from Obama on justifying this wrong, these words must be considered empty election year pandering. GQ’s claim of “Don’t expect miracles. There is very little the president can do by himself” is simply untrue and all it does it try to condition us to accept whatever mere political scraps are thrown our way.

There are plenty of things Obama can do before the election to show us he’s sincere, not the least of which is change marijuana to a Schedule II drug via executive order and change federal law enforcement priorities to stop raiding dispensaries. Reason’s Mike Riggs wrote a great article in May on how and why Obama should curtail these raids and that it’s time for the POTUS to keep his word.

We all want to and should be optimistic, but we must hold all of our politicians, including the POTUS, accountable for their actions vs mere words. Whether you are an Obama supporter or not, he’s in a dead heat with Romney. Over 50% want marijuana fully legalized, and 74% want the POTUS to respect states’ rights on medical marijuana.  Don’t accept empty promises in Obama’s 2nd election season as the best weedists can hope for. Obama needs our votes, we must be seen as a voting bloc and make Obama earn our votes before election day with real action.

As I wrote about last month, every day the essence of Paul Waldman’s challenge drives me and I hope all of us:
“When was the last time somebody lost a race for being too tough on drugs? The half of Americans who favor marijuana legalization are not an organized voting bloc that gets together to punish its opponents at the polls.”