Is Legalizing Weed Obama's Secret Weapon?

The Atlantic Wire ^ | June 13, 2012 | Elspeth Reeve

[2ndDivisionVet]

In 2004 George W. Bush's re-election campaign worked to put anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives up for vote in several swing states in order to turn out more hard-core conservatives to the polls. This year the question is whether marijuana legalization measures will turn out young voters for Obama.

Bush's plan to use gay marriage bans -- in states that did not actually allow gay marriage -- as a turnout booster led to signs featuring icky public restroom symbols proliferated and liberal panic that the Christian right had taken over. The press obsessed over "values voters." One of Bush's aides, Ken Mehlman, who later came out as gay himself, has apologized for the strategy, two others say it didn't work.

This year there's another incumbent president with modest approval ratings who could turn out his base with controversial ballot measures. But this time, the issue features no biblical or scatological imagery. In 2012, voters in swing states will decide whether they'll allow their fellow citizens to bear joints. Unlike the gay marriage votes, there's no indication that Obama's re-election team is behind any of the pot legalization initiatives, but there are Democrats who are hoping that it will boost turnout among weed's biggest fans: young people.

Getting more young people to vote has long been a Democratic fantasy, since they tend to vote so heavily Democratic. But past attempts to bong the vote have been disappointing, in part because stoners aren't the group anyone would most count on to bother filling out a ballot. Ahead of the 2010 midterms, The Wall Street Journal ran the story, "Democrats Look to Cultivate Pot Vote in 2012," noting that California's pot-legalizing Proposition 19 was being studied...

[Bronzy]

Let it be legalized, duh! Tobacco is legal and some cannot work if addicted to tobacco. Some will not hire smokers. If they hire dopers, then tobacco smokers can be hired. Just my thinking about smoke junkies.

[Ken H]

Why not leave it to the states to regulate intrastate mj as each one sees fit?

[katana]

loyalty is lost on them

How to find the polling station is lost on them. "Oh man, was yesterday Tuesday? Awww, s***!"

[JudgemAll]

HIs Harvard student f@gs cannot pimp compete in crack cocaine revenues the way the street thugs can, thus Zero and his ilk want the rights to it.

[JudgemAll]

HIs Harvard student f@gs cannot pimp compete in crack cocaine revenues the way the street thugs can, thus Zero and his ilk want the rights to it.

...

And it started with handing contraceptive and abortions in the alleys, now liberals want the rights to dope your children to make them easy to control and rape.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Making stoners mainstream will not lead to happiness for anyone.

How could they possibly become more mainstream? Anyone in the US who wants weed can get it in at most a couple of hours. That's something I realized back in the early '80s as a freshman in high school, when I learned that a kid I'd known since elementary school was dealing during PE class (his step-dad was supplying). Our last three presidents have either acknowledged smoking weed or have been reported by multiple sources to have done so.

At this point, all marijuana laws are really accomplishing is price support. Legalize it, tax it, sell it in liquor stores requiring ID - at least that way kids won't be able to get it.

[angry elephant]

I have friends who are life-long conservatives and business owners who smoke dope.

It was, after all, initially banned because the cotton growers did not want to compete with the superior hemp product and marijuana is a byproduct of hemp.

And then it is difficult to tax so the government does not want it to be legal. But tax it like cigarettes and alcohol and save a lot of money waging the war on drugs.

of course, it is a state’s right, as almost all rights are supposed to be.

[Blood of Tyrants]

The WOD is about giving more power to the government to take people’s property and imprison them. Nothing more.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I don’t think that Obama would do that for a simple reason.

The union vote. With marijuana no longer federally prosecuted, the jobs of tens of thousands of police, prison guard, and other unionized personnel would become surplus.

Like it or not, keeping marijuana illegal is a huge business.

[CORedneck]

I am in Colorado, I plan on favoring the amendment on weed. More as an exercise in telling outsiders to mind their own affairs and leave us Colorado folks alone.

[SunkenCiv]

Hemp Farming Still Illegal, Obama Provides Convenient Scapegoat by Chris Roberts Tue., Jun. 12 2012 at 7:21 AM -- If and when Tea Party hero Sen. Rand Paul visits San Francisco and goes shopping, he'll find friendly faces in the aisles of Rainbow Grocery more quickly than he will any Safeway (especially the Castro location). In addition to the destruction of all government, the Kentucky Republican has legislated in favor of crunchy lifestyle staples raw milk and Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, the latter made from hemp, the only commodity legal in the United States to import, sell, and possess, but not grow... Drug laws are why David Bronner, current CEO of Dr. Bronner's, was hauled off to jail for marijuana possession after setting up hemp plants in front of the White House on Monday. Bronner, whose company is part of an estimated $400 million domestic hemp market, says Wyden and Paul are "commendable," but the real blame lies with "regressive drug warriors entrenched" in the Obama Administration, which shot down nascent hemp hopes with the pro-enforcement statement. The Choomer In Chief himself is to blame yet again.

>

[Feline_AIDS]

Yeah I really don’t see why Romney doesn’t just beat him to the punch.

Confession: I’ve never smoked weed, mostly because I think it smells like a$$, but also because everyone I knew who smoked weed was super boring and it didn’t look fun.

Still, I’ve never seen anyone smoke weed and do anything destructive except drive a car. And I’ve seen drunk people do ridiculous, violent things.

So put me down for “Meh. Legalize it.”

[Mortrey]

Only if it can be paid for by their EBT cards.

[crazydad]

Bingo. Pot is no worse then drinking. Especially when it is made in Chocolate!!! Best way. No poluting your lungs and still get the relaxing feeling. Did I just spill my secret? Oh nooooo’s!

[Molon Labbie]

Hear, hear.

The cure for the WOD became worse than the disease.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks 2ndDivisionVet.

• Oakland to host nation's 1st marijuana street fair (What could possibly go wrong?)
• Colo. bank to close medical marijuana accounts, leaving dispensaries scrambling
• Do medical marijuana users have right to bear arms? No, says ATF
• Let Our Farmers Grow - Industrial HEMP act - Ron Paul
• Obama's War on Weed Represents a Strange About-Face on Medical Marijuana
• Obama's foolish war on marijuana (Obama Regime Doing Bidding of Mexican Drug Cartels?)
• DUmmie FUnnies 12-10-11 (DUmmies Upset Over Federal Crackdown On Legal Marijuana)
• Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana set to close Dispensaries (Suckers Believed Obama Promises)
• Get a Medical Marijuana Card, Lose Your Second Amendment Rights
• Feds Clamp Down On Medical Marijuana Shops
• Obama Cracks Down On Medical Marijuana [even in states where it's legal]
• Medical Marijuana Workers To Announce Plans To Unionize - Los Angeles
• Feds' crackdown is a bummer for Oakland marijuana university
• Berkeley marijuana dispensary forced out of business after 13 years
• Pelosi calls on Obama to respect states' rights, end medical marijuana raids (Hussein's fault!)
• Bill Permitting the Medical Use of Marijuana Clears the CT Senate
• Pelosi Questions Obama Marijuana Policy
• Pelosi Calls for End to Raids on Marijuana Producers and Distributors
• Marijuana initiative could make or break Obama in Colorado
• The Choomer in Chief: Obama's Early Years on Marijuana
• Meghan McCain Says Yes to Legalizing Marijuana
• Ron Paul: Legalizing Marijuana Is a State's Constitutional Right
• Pat Robertson: "It's time we stop locking up people for possession of marijuana..."
• Pat Robertson Backs Legalizing Marijuana

[grey_whiskers]

Sorry to bug you, Jim, but does FR have an official for or against marijuana policy? (I'm against; but think the current enforcement mechanisms are all screwed up.)

Cheers!

[Para-Ord.45]

Not just the Paulobots. He`d solidify the youth vote ( under 25 ) and secure the left wing.

The dominant left-wing media would of course glowingly report the issue with their messiah going on a campus tour like some rock star.

Could be the jolt of enthusiasm that propels the messiah past the post in November.

It`s that or launch a war to freeze the electorate into re-electing him.

[TurboZamboni]

Stop making sense. you must be a HIPPIE!

[DannyTN]

Pot causes Bi-polar disease. There are Hardvard studies among others indicating both linkage and a causative effect of brain damage in certain relevant brain areas of long term pot users.

So I would disagree with Alcohol being more dangerous.

There are some drugs that are so addicting that one use leaves the person addicted. Are you going to allow those on the market too? Allow everything so that date rapists have full and easy legal access?

Are you going to allow Crack Cocaine, Meth, Ectasy, LSD too?

If not, then we will still have a war on drugs, it will just be defined by a different set of drugs.