In a September 2008 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, only 10% of Americans said that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. Another 37% said it should be illegal with some exceptions. On the other side, 49% said it should either be legal, or legal with certain exceptions. The overall breakdown was 49%-47%. That reflects a fairly evenly divided nation, but one in which a very small minority favors a total ban.
A February 2009 Rasmussen Poll found that 40% of the people think marijuana should be legalized while 46% do not. Forty-eight percent of men favor legalization, while only 34% of women agree.
Why do I mention this? Because both the issue of legal abortion and the issue of legal marijuana are deeply contentious issues that nearly equally divide the country. But the opponents of legal abortion have an entire political party in Washington to reflect their views while virtually no one in Washington reflects the views of people that want legal marijuana. It is perfectly serious to say you oppose abortion in all cases even though only one in ten Americans hold that view. But say that marijuana should be legal and the press says you have a Cheech and Chong sense of humor.
Whether you support the legalization of marijuana or not, it’s a bizarre situation where 40% of the people hold that view and yet they can’t find anyone to take their position seriously. Obama’s early drug policies have been pretty good (I’d give him a B-minus, up from a ‘F’ for the last six presidents). But he flatly rejected any economic merit in legalization today during an online town-hall meeting. He’s wrong about that, but I understand that he has enough on his plate right now and doesn’t need to be seen as part of the Jay and Silent Bob Caucus. Nonetheless, his response was a disappointment. It seems like draconian and self-defeating drug laws are surpassed only by unthinking support for Israel in the things that are distorted beyond recognition in Washington DC.
“Nonetheless, his response was a disappointment. It seems like draconian and self-defeating drug laws are surpassed only by unthinking support for Israel in the things that are distorted beyond recognition in Washington DC.”
I was also pretty disappointed. Just a flat out ‘No’ with none of his usual explanations.
I can understand, though. He just cannot directly confront this AT THIS TIME. But Clinton’s statement while she was in Mexico that their problems were ‘our’ fault is a stark contrast in what has gone before. It’s a direct assault on the supply theory on winning the ‘war on drugs’.
Give Obama two terms, and a calm relaxed time to deal with it, and I find it hard to believe he will not at least start us in the right direction. Just like our Israel issues, it’s best done crab like, with work done in the background.
nalbar
I’m willing to give them a little more time on this one. Given Clinton’s statements in Mexico yesterday, looks like they’re fully aware we have lost another ‘war’ against a domestic social problem.
Well, you probably don’t have cancer, then?
Medical NOW. Legalization later.
It is authorized for medical use – at least in those 31 States – which at least partly rebuts the notion that ‘no one’ represents legal medicinal weed in Congress.
Both of your assertions are wrong.
It is legal in 13 states, at the state level. These states either passed popular voter referenda or their state legislatures passed bills in support.
The United States congress has had medical marijuana bills in front of fit in three congresses and they have refused to move the bills to the floor for a vote.
In the last congress there were both medical pot legalization and pot possession legalization bills, H.R.5842 & H.R.5843 respectively. They died in committee. Rep.s BArney Frank and Ron Paul, who have authored past bills, say that they will offer new bills in the congress in late April. these bills will need massive public support in order for them to move out of committee.
I understand the DEA went after another medical marijuana place in California recently. Supposedly, they were to stand down and not do that kind of thing anymore.
It looks like the pressure from the drug war complex was too much to hold back on. There is big money in fighting drugs. Not to win, just keep on fighting. Let alone the black market big players likely hob nob with wall streaters.
alos hypocritical, considering BO was a smoker in his time.
some dreamers at kos seem to think that if you listen to what wasn’t said that there’s some kind of decriminalization on the horizon.
dream on crazy dreamers. this country isn’t that smart.
top recommneded diary at kos is a retort to obama on on pot.
I don’t worry about what our political leadership says about it now, because as we’re seeing in Mexico legalization is going to be forced on them later. It’s going to get worse down there, not better, and our fellow Americans in AZ and TX are going to start making loud noises about stopping the violence.
You simply cannot have an escalating and deadly insurrection happening just a few miles from our country without politicians being forced to deal with the root causes of that insurrection. This Sergeant Schultz attitude our government has taken is coming to an end, IMO.
There are people suffering with illnesses that could be relieved with medical pot.
There are people suffering in prisons from nearly a million pot busts each year.
There are people suffering in Mexican towns under siege by both the cartels and 50,000 Mexican military troops.
There are American troops under fire in Afghanistan thanks to the Taliban getting 70% of their funding from heroin that could be regulated out of the Taliban’s hands.
There are Americans about to be shoved through the drug war prison system because Obama has included $3-billion in drug task force money in the stimulus package for more arrests. Hillary Clinton promised the Mexican government that Obama will deal with the demand side of the issue in the U.S. that means more arrests to fill more drug courts. More coerced drug rehabs and more police and prisons for drug users.
Obama is escalating and militarizing the drug war both internationally and domestically. I worry about that a lot.
Seen any analyses? That’d be the key. Dollar figures, budget impacts, revenue streams in numerical format.
“bottom line” as the financial types like to say.
Since the American who ask the question is a former local student my paper ran this story at the top of page one. I prepared this response to the issue. It is on my blog.
Drug Warrior Obama’s Economic Blind Spot
The Jay and Silent Bob caucus? If only. Instead, we have an entire Congress, perhaps minus one or two members, who routinely get high by drinking an industrial solvent diluted to just below the point of immediate toxicity.
Nobody said it had to make sense. It just has to get the rubes to the polls on time.
I would take exception in your characterization of Obama’s early positions in marijuana. I believed at the time and still do that Obama took those positions ONLY to silence potential political activism that would disrupt the orderly flow of his campaign. Instead of drug reform political activists standing up and confronting him, the same way they were already doing it with other politicians, Obama said what he had to say to co-opt them and get them onto his “online” working team. He succeeded and a lot of reformers joined his effort.
Now he spits in their faces.
Last month he said there would no longer be medical pot raids. But the day before the town hall yesterday there was a medical marijuana dispensary raid in San Francisco.
Obama is a liar and a thug. A typical Democrat who will say whatever he has to to undermine and split ardent activism for core social justice, civil liberties and human rights issues within the the ranks while all the time he is pandering to the authoritarian right-wing status quo of America.
The only thing that will change these thug politicians is Americans out in the streets screaming at Obama, the congress and state legislators:
NO MORE DRUG WAR!
NO MORE DRUG WAR!
NO MORE DRUG WAR!
NO MORE DRUG WAR!
FAX PROTEST!
Drug Warrior John Kerry border Chaos Hearing
U.S. Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is going to El Paso,TX on Monday to thump his chest and look macho over the blood and chaos caused by his drug war policy. I faxed him a letter that I wrote to him in his capacity at chair of the committee and I am encouraging others to FAX him also. And if your senator is on the committee FAX them too. Contact information for the committee is on the letter.
Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey is on the foreign Relations Committee and you can reach him with the contacts on the page.
If they don’t hear it from us they won’t hear it!
NO MORE DRUG WAR!
NO MORE DRUG WAR!
NO MORE DRUG WAR!
NO MORE DRUG WAR!
A Sept. 2008 Zogby poll showed more support for reforming the drug laws than for continuing the status quo.
I posted it here:
Pennsylvania Legislator Backs Medical Marijuana
It takes an average of eight hours of police patrol time off the street to process a marijuana arrest.
There were more than 870,000 pot arrests in 2007 and the number climbs each year.
Obama has included $3-billion for drug task forces in the stimulus package to “stimulate” more pot arrests.
Setting aside the reduced economic viability of any American with a drug conviction just look at how much Obama is wasting now on pot arrests alone.
Barney Frank, Ron Paul, John Conyers and dozens of other members of congress have tried to represent the issue but the Democratic leadership ‘just says no’.
In 1998 69% of the people is Washington.D.C. voted to give doctors the responsibility to prescribe medical pot. The congress, ever since, has put a clause into the D.C. budget appropriation saying that if D.C. spends any money to enact the medical pot law that the congress will cut them off at the knees.
The United States congress, including the Democrats, vote each year to goose-step all over the 69% majority will of the American people who reside in our national capital.