Obama Chokes on Marijuana

President Obama's experiment Thursday with an otherwise traditional town hall format flecked with questions posted and voted on at whitehouse.gov was a useful experiment with interactivity. But it was a relatively small step forward, and the online crowd did not provide much of a disruptive alternative to topics Obama certainly would have been asked about anyway.

How did the tech president do? Fine. He genuinely took popular questions and he certainly took many of the top-rated ones. His answers were long, which meant he took only five of the 104,000 questions submitted and, more important, only a tiny fraction of the approximately 1,000 questions that the public seemed truly enthusiastic about.

But it wasn't exactly as if he took penetrating, unanticipated questions from "Open for Questions," which the administration set up two days ago to solicit questions in advance. In fact the only subject that might not have otherwise been addressed came from an organized campaign to ask Obama his position on legalizing marijuana.

Obama obeyed the spirit (and letter) of the event by entertaining the question while blunting the troll effort that had put it to him: "No, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy," he said to laughter in the room.
Other than that bit of comedy relief how exactly would it have differed if this town hall were to be entirely scripted by the White House? They would have touched many of the same subjects — health care, veterans, outsourcing — and Obama would have given his regular stump points.

That's more or less what happened.

Obama's First Online Town Hall: Drama-Free OKness | Epicenter from Wired.com

Change my ass! I'm insulted as an American that the President would only offer a one liner on the marijuana issue...I'd even give it a reverse Michelle Obama. "Up to this point I was a proud American..."

I'd rather see 10 bridges to nowhere built than see another penny wasted on marijuana enforcement. The hell with the money gained from taxation. What about the money saved at every level of government from not enforcing, prosecuting and/or incarcerating people for smoking weed?

I'll even play devil's advocate here for a second..."What about all those poor cops across the country who would lose their Federal funds they use to buy new cop cars and weapons to chase all the potheads? Some of them might even lose their jobs!"

I say fuck em'. Welcome to the real world. I hear they need cops in Mexico.

I say now is the time for public outrage on this issue. Are we going to let the President give 40% of the population lip service? I certainly plan on giving him my two cents. I'm tired of spending billions of dollars on this when there is no measurable progress. It's not working no matter how much money we throw at it. It's simply time to move on. Prohibition doesn't work.

Marijuana Ballot Item Goes Up In Smoke

For the second year in a row the Burlington City Council debated whether to ask voters if they are interested in decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana by way of a ballot question. For the second year in a row the City Council shot down the idea of letting voters weigh in.

Councilors voted 8 to 6, Monday night, against putting an advisory referendum on the March 3 Town Meeting Day ballot. Ed Adrian proposed the initiative, which would have asked voters if they want the city to urge lawmakers to examine the issue of decriminalizing marijuana.

"I think it's clear that after 70 or 80 years of active law enforcement against marijuana and the fact that we have not been able to solve the problem over that time period speaks volumes and I think it speaks volumes in that it's at least time to start looking at something else," said Adrian.

He garnered community support from several people who spoke at Monday's meeting.

"In this time of economic downturn I think that we might be able to spend our time and our resources and our money fighting real crime against persons and property," said Nancy Lynch, of the Vermont Alliance for Intelligent Drug Laws.

Burlington Police Chief Michael Schirling testified against the measure. He said even small amounts of marijuana pose a problem because they are just the tip of a much larger network of drug dealing. He was also concerned about confusing children.

"The dangerous educational message it sends to youth that it starts to blur the line about where safety really needs to be considered," said Schirling.

Councilors debated for over an hour before making their final decision.

Bianca Slota - WCAX News

WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Marijuana Ballot Item Goes Up In Smoke

“I hate these stupid fucking arguments. Doesn't the Police Chief mean "further blur the line"? We already send conflicting messages by our stance on alcohol and tobacco. What are the Council members afraid of here? Are they saying their constituents are too stupid to decide this issue for themselves?”

We spend an incredible amount of money enforcing marijuana laws. Considering the amount of people who smoke it would make sense to generate revenue from its use. The state could also greatly benefit from the many indusrial uses for hemp products. While there is a process to become a hemp farmer, I have yet to hear whether anyone has applied for a permit. It would seem that while decreasing the stigma of hemp production would help, it would also help to streamline the process fo apply for a permit.

I think it's time once again for Vermont to take the lead on a national issue. The Legislature should decriminalize marijuana in small, personal use quantities. At the same time they should provide tax breaks for hemp related products that add new jobs to the economy. If we get ahead of the curve a bit, we could add "Vermont Made Hemp" to our growing list of fine agricultural products that receive the Vermot Quality seal.

Marijuana Legalization Tops List of Questions for Obama in Online Poll

(SALEM, Ore.) - I am not surprised that the number one thing Americans are asking President-elect Barack Obama is whether or not he is going to legalize marijuana. Generations are changing and evolving and the taboos around cannabis are slowly falling away.

American industries can harness the power of this multi-billion dollar, still mostly black market business. The attitude of people in this country is in a mode of great anticipation and change. Barack Obama is already on the record saying he does not want to use the Justice Department to bust state operated medical marijuana dispensaries

Marijuana Legalization Tops List of Questions for Obama in Online Poll - Salem-News.Com

It will be interesting to see what response, if any, we get from the Obama team. I wouldn't be suprised if someone dug into the web site stats to see if the system has been "gamed" to put this topic to number one. It may be a legitimate "snapshot" of where the public stands on issues, but one certainly has to wonder about our priorities if it is. Then again, it would certainly give our economy a new sector with a very large cashflow.

Stoners in the Mist

This hillarious anti-marijuana website was actually put together by the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. I hope this isn't a taxpayer funded organization. This appears to be a modern day version of "Reefer Madness". While the over the top exagerrations of "stoner" behavior are highly amusing to adults, it migh just send the wrong message to kids.

I came accross this while reading about the useless prohibition of marijuana in the United States. There is a marijuana arrest every 38 seconds in the US. Most of them are for possesion, not trafficking. We spent over 10 billion dollars last year on these arrests. Did it make a dent in the marijuana use? Nope, in fact it stayed about the same. We could spend another month or two in Iraq for that kind of money!

Imagine what we could do if we didn't spend 10 billion dollars a year in marijuana law enforcement. We could do a lot. Then imagine the amount of tax revenue that could be generated. We would certainly want to spend some of that money on education and rehabilitation. You could also add in the revenue and taxes generated by hemp products and hemp agriculture.

We're missing a huge opportunity because of archic laws that were created by people who were threatened by hemp. Primarily the cotton industry. After 72 years of inneffective prohibition, it's about time we pulled our collective heads out of our asses and end the prohibition. It's just stupid....

Stoners in the Mist