Obama administration eases policy on medical marijuana
The Obama Administration said today that people who use and sell marijuana for medical purposes should not face federal prosecution. Instead, prosecutors should go after only high level traffickers.
The new Justice Department guidelines issued today to 14 states that allow medical marijuana effectively reverse long-existing stance on the drug. The Bush Administration raided medical distributors who violated federal laws.
While a handful of states allow marijuana for medical purposes, it's carefully restricted. California, however, is the only state where dispensaries can sell and advertise marijuana.
And the practice has taken off in recent years and attitudes toward the drug appear to be changing. Smoking pot is no longer taboo, but just well, normal, according to this piece in the LA Times.
At fashion-insider parties, joints are passed nearly as freely as hors d'oeuvres. Traces of the acrid smoke waft from restaurant patios, car windows and passing pedestrians on the city streets -- in broad daylight. Even the art of name-dropping in casual conversation -- once limited to celebrity sightings and designer shoe purchases -- now includes the occasional boast of recently discovered weed strains such as "Strawberry Cough" and "Purple Kush."
As I heard Jon Stewart say on The Daily Show recently: did California just legalize marijuana without anybody noticing?
It's not just that the practice has gone mainstream, but so has the press about medical marijuana. Check out the interactive map also from the LA Times, which notes Los Angeles-area dispensaries as well as the huge growth in applications to open new ones.
Medical marijuana patients, who say the drug eases chronic pain and helps with nausea often triggered by chemotherapy, call the new guidelines a huge victory. Meanwhile others say they will do nothing to clamp down on the big problem of marijuana trafficking. What do you think?
Associated Press photo
Comments
Great first step. Next step: get the criminality out of sourcing it and prices down to what a natural state agricultural product should be.
Maybe then we'll have the nerve to medicalize the pharmaceutical products again and eliminate the death and destruction of abuse.
Posted by: MrRational | October 19, 2009 4:32 PM
It's time to write a thank you note to the President.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Posted by: Concerned Parent | October 19, 2009 4:47 PM
Man has been smoking Cannabis for Centuries. Indians have enough trouble understanding how the white man took his land let-a-lone the breath he breaths.
Like it or not folks,Capitalism has stolen your freedom. And your wallet too!
The Constitution states that ..No State shall..."make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts" and just look at the atrocities happening to our people by the banks.
President Obama should be commended for taking on the establishment in putting freedom above the profits of the dark prescription drug empire which is killing tens of thousands of Americans each year without any sign of control in their bashing of our networks with propaganda and scare tactics of death unless you take our pill.
While America evoked a hope of change with the new election, what is seriously more important is that we all need to continue to support the enforcement of our Constitutional rights granted by our forefathers and take back this great country.
More important than the Marijuana is the Money! And by taking back our money we will insure our freedom of the people.
Congressman Ron Paul is calling for an "End to the Fed" and an audit of the federal reserve bank and its cronies that have stolen America's wealth and homes and your rights.
Congressman Paul is calling for a Nationalization of the private federal reserve bank to the ownership by all Americans - you and me.
We are the true owners of our gold and wealth and like the illegal laws of a harmless Cannabis plant.
WE THE PEOPLE WILL TAKE OVER THE OWNERSHIP OF THE MONEY.
Jay Von Frank
Posted by: Jay Von Frank | October 20, 2009 12:17 AM