What was I thinking?
From the New York Times:
Senior White House and Justice Department officials are considering plans for legal action against Colorado and Washington that could undermine voter-approved initiatives to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in those states, according to several people familiar with the deliberations.
Even as marijuana legalization supporters are celebrating their victories in the two states, the Obama administration has been holding high-level meetings since the election to debate the response of federal law enforcement agencies to the decriminalization efforts.
To put it a bit more clearly, the Obama Department of Justice has no intention of either honoring the laws of the states of Washington or Colorado, and plans to grasp the old Schedule 1 crime until it's pried from its cold, dead fingers. The feds are not going to stop the War on Demon Marijuana. No way. No how.
Why? Why would such an enlightened president, who neo-cons place just to the left of Trotsky, reject the will of the people?
“In enacting the Controlled Substances Act, Congress determined that marijuana is a Schedule I controlled substance,” {Seattle United States Attorney Jenny A. Durkan] said. “Regardless of any changes in state law, including the change that will go into effect on December 6 in Washington State, growing, selling or possessing any amount of marijuana remains illegal under federal law.”
Well, yeah. We know that the feds have yet to come to grips with the fact that the citizens of some states think that laws passed after a showing of Reefer Madness on the big screen in the house chamber, but what about the fact that Schedule I, meaning that a drug is highly abused and has no medicinal benefit, is total nonsense? The only people in Congress who still believe that also believe that women's vaginas can magically reject the sperm of rapists.
The Times runs through the various responses available to the feds, to sue the states to prevent the law from going into effect, to take up the slack of arrest and prosecution in state courts by overloading federal courts, or, the most painful and effective tool in the federal arsenal, to cut off federal funding.
While supporters of President Obama may not have switched their votes to Mitt Romney in light of this reaction, I bet they wish they could vote for Ronald Reagan. His script writers would have understood.
That the federal government isn't going to accept that fact that the citizens of two of these United States have decided that they want to control their own lives, to exercise those rights that were supposed to be assured by the Constitution under basic notions of federalism, not to mention the 10th Amendment, really comes as no surprise.
As Congress, with the acquiescence of the courts, have usurped control over criminal laws far beyond Jefferson's wildest imagination, it was all fine and dandy as long as everybody was on the same page. Who cared whether the Drug War was fought in state courts or federal, by local cops or DEA agents? They were all on the same team, and that's what really mattered.
But now that a split has arisen, where suddenly citizens have chosen to hop off the drug war train and want to run their states their own way, we have a crisis abrewing.
That marijuana remains a schedule I drug isn't likely to change a lot of minds about where the law should be, and the feds reliance on this archaic law to tell citizens that their votes don't matter nearly as much as Congress, isn't likely to change any minds. President Obama probably hates the fact that he's been thrust into the middle of this, even though I suspect he's got no greater beef with marijuana than he did with gay marriage. He was against it until he caught a whiff of public opinion being overwhelmingly for it, and being a man of integrity, he flip-flopped. Marijuana is likely no different.
But two states don't make a tidal wave, and he isn't prepared to suffer the wrath of the people for being the liberal president who turned America into a druggie state with a side of munchies. So instead, he's prepared to be the president who refused to accept the will of the voters of Colorado and Washington, just as he was when it came to medicinal marijuana in California, and openly admitted that the federal government will use any method it can to dictate to the states what will be a crime.
It will be interesting to see which legacy the president picks. And it will be equally interesting to see what the States of Colorado and Washington, and their respective federal district courts, have to say about it. This may well be the start of a constitutional crisis on unwarranted federal expansion on crime, and if so, it's about time.
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