An important indicator of marijuana decriminalization policy from the Obama administration goes largely overlooked

There have been a number of stories floating around recently about marijuana legalization, especially since Obama won the presidential election. One in particular, mentioned in the previous entry on this blog, involved surprising results from a public outreach project conducted by Obama’s transition team in early December[1]. It has been over 3 months now since these results hit the news, and Obama remained silent until, coincidentally, he finally addressed the topic 3 days after my previous post regarding the story.

To summarize the original story, the Obama transition team asked visitors of their website, Change.gov, to participate in a project to provide a list of the public’s most important policy questions for the new administration. The project yielded such useful information that a message on the transition website claimed that “Participation…outpaced our expectations.”[1]. The real story, however, is that out of the top 50 questions drafted from the results, over a dozen of them, including the number one most pressing issue on the list, were focused on the legalization of marijuana.

The #1 question asked was:
"Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs...?"
Another of the 12+ marijuana related questions asked bluntly:
“How will you fix the current war on drugs in America? and will there be any chance of decriminalizing marijuana?”

On March, 26th, in his historic first internet townhall meeting, Obama addressed the subject which had been left open-ended for months. This issue had been all-but-forgotten by me, ironically the subject of my post 3 days before Obama’s belated response:


While this clip got some play on the television networks, it was largely skipped over, and wasn’t given serious consideration. There are 2 fundamental problems I noticed that seemed to have slipped through the cracks on this one.

The first problem with this stood out to me immediately, and that is the lack of seriousness being paid to the issue. At the first mention of legalizing marijuana, you can see jovial expressions forming on people in the audience, accompanied by laughter that grows until the end of the clip. It is unfortunate that out of a sample with “3.5 million” votes, as Obama claimed, the question of top priority amongst the people is treated as a joke. This is yet another example of how a discussion about marijuana law reform is almost always laughed at in the media, and isn’t given the slightest chance. It is worth observing that other issues, such as government spending or abortion rights, are greeted with serious discussion in the media, and are not laughed off as if there is no argument to be had. While marijuana law may not seem as important to some as these other issues, this discussion in the townhall meeting was based on a largely successful public opinion research project from the Obama transition team, the results of which listed marijuana issues priority to any other policy issue. This townhall meeting is basically a presentation to the media from the Obama administration, and the way Obama responded to the question was an attempt to discredit the issue, and shut it down without a real answer.

Obama presents the question:
"There was one question that was voted on that ranked fairly high, and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and job creation..."
He then separates the question and answer with a quip intended to shut down any debate on the topic:
"...I don't know what this says about the online audience..."
Obama carries on and essentially ends the debate by answering the question with the word “no”:
"This was a fairly popular question; we want to make sure that it was answered. The answer is no, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy."

To connect the first and second point of my argument, it’s important to point out the severity of the understatement Obama uses in describing the issue. He claims that the question “…ranked fairly high,” while the question was actually the highest ranked question in the poll. Obama also uses another slight of hand that is easy to miss. There were over a dozen marijuana-related questions in just the top 50 questions alone that the poll produced. While Obama claims to only be answering a single question involving marijuana and the economy, he is actually creating an attack that attempts to turn down any debate within the category of marijuana legalization. This means that he is trying to stop a topic with enormous weight in his transition team’s effective opinion poll, by going after something he says “…ranked fairly high.” This strategy has obvious correlation with the classic offensive theory of ‘divide and conquer’.

The other big issue here goes to directly what Obama says about the impact of legalizing marijuana on the economy. He provides no reason for denying the economic potential of regulation of marijuana as a consumer good. Having chopped this single ‘economy’ question off the block of all the marijuana legalization questions he is trying to sink, he wants to make you believe that this is a silly attempt crafted by some crazies to get marijuana legalized on the back of poor economic conditions. The fact of the matter is that marijuana is readily available to people within the U.S., and legalization would have essentially no effect on consumption. What it would change is the direction of the large pool of money that currently goes into an unregulated, black market, and many times is piped directly out of our country. Regulating substances like alcohol and tobacco was proven to be extremely profitable, providing some of the most recession-proof industries that keep massive income flowing in during the down times, often even increasing revenue as times get worse. The answer “no” simply is not good enough, because it is undeniable that the industry of marijuana would indeed provide a bright spot in these dark times. If we were talking about something that wasn't branded by the social this stigma, nobody would be denying it's economic potential.

In summary, Obama is going back on every word he gave us. This reply was an unfair denial to confront the wants of the American people. This is a perfect example of how what Obama knows to be the will of the people does not influence a single choice he makes, despite the fact he is dealing in the tax dollars and freedoms we entrusted him with.

[1]
The Hill, 12/15/08; Legalizing Marijuana Tops Obama Online Poll
http://blog.thehill.com/2008/12/15/legalizing-marijuana-tops-obama-online-poll