The Midday Open thread had this tidbit:
The White House has a petition site where people can ... you guessed it ... create petitions to the Obama Administration. Petitions that get over 5,000 signatures get an official response from the White House.
We can see where the voters heads are at since the first petition to get 5000 signatures was for the legalization of marijuana. The fourth and sixth most popular petitions on line are also about legalization.
A proposal to legalize marijuana is the first idea on the White House's online petition site to gather enough signatures to break the threshold required to receive an official response.
The White House has promised to evaluate and issue a formal response to any idea that receives more than 5,000 signatures within 30 days. Visitors are free to offer their own proposals.
http://thehill.com/...
The White House has not yet issued a formal response to the marijuana legalization petition.
Drug legalization questions have also dominated Obama's YouTube question-and-answer sessions.
Marijuana legalization seems to be a constant and popular subject on voters minds. Course extraterrestrials come in seventh with 390 signatures.
When asked during his transition shortly after being elected Pres. Obamawas not in favor of legalization. I wonder if the recession has had any effect on his opinion. After all, marijuana could provide lots of new jobs and tax money to help the ailing economy. People say it was WWII that ended the depression, but I think the repeal of prohibition helped.
5:02 PM PT: Food for thought:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Prohibitionists argued that Prohibition would be more effective if enforcement were increased. However, increased efforts to enforce Prohibition simply resulted in the government spending more money, rather than less. The economic cost of Prohibition became especially pronounced during the Great Depression. According to Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA) and Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform (WONPR) literature, an estimated $861 million dollars was lost in federal tax revenue from untaxed liquor; $40 million dollars was spent annually on Prohibition enforcement.[5] The AAPA also released a pamphlet claiming that $11,000,000,000 was lost in federal liquor-tax revenue and $310,000,000 was spent on Prohibition enforcement from 1920 to 1931.[6] This lack of potential funding during a period of economic strife became a crucial part of the campaign for repeal.