[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster.]
I noticed on pro-Obama sites in all the rosy glow of 2012 victory a significantly muted response to the successful marijuana legalization efforts of Colorado and Washington. The victories of bong were noted, all right, but there were no dancing gifs of pot leaves, no beaming rainbows of the arrival of bud nirvana, no blaring glory to the wonders of legalized cannabis.
The reason, of course, is that cannabis represents rank blatant betrayal by the Obama administration, and besides the natural human tendency to avoid anything uncomfortable betrayal is in a class by itself when it comes to feeling bad, we all know how it’s always seriously heavy stuff. The election is now over, of course, so it’s as good a time as any to face something unpleasant.
In one of the most vicious and blatant slaps to constituent face I have ever seen Attorney General Holder began harassing a prosecuting California pot clinics in 2010, precisely violating an Obama 2008 campaign promise that this would not happen. I still can’t figure out the politics of this, in a way it could reassure older voters, but the risks to alienating younger voters were significant.
It could be the Obama team figured cannabis would always be a peripheral issue and breaking the marijuana promise was a good way to show they were always ready to stick it to the hippie liberals in the Party. Seriously, after watching Rahm work the first 2 years of the administration it’s a totally credible idea, and we all know those pot smokers are dirty fucking hippies, go ahead and knife them, it’s worked for us before.
[shrugs] Whatev, it happened, Obama won, marijuana also won in Washington and Colorado. Mr. Holder will be Attorney General for Obama’s second term and any time he can come up with an answer on how the feds will respond will be greatly appreciated by the folks in Washington and Colorado, who are trying to ramp up their implementation structures.
I’d like to know, too, since getting whapped in the face with that 2010 cannabis betrayal hurt like hell, I among many. Perhaps some redemption is possible, maybe some sanity finally present in a decision to the leave the stoners and hippies in Washington and Colorado alone, to stop being such stupid authoritarians. Could be.
The Governor of California, by the way, publicly went on the record stating Holder should leave Washington and Colorado alone over their cannabis legalization. Thank you, Governor Brown.
Betrayal is one thing, public policy another. Of all the screaming insanities of the drug war one horrifying result are the thousands of corpses processed through Mexican morgues along the border. Public policy is usually a droning, plodding affair of numbers and rules, yet somehow we have let policy failure regress here to the point of stacked bloody corpses, policy failure does not get any worse than that.
The fact that politically the failure can be excused or hidden because it happens in Mexico just makes it worse. Mexico has been a sterling neighbor we have nothing to be proud about in our past or present (exploited Mexican labor puts food on our tables, lest we forget), and to sit idly by while the ultimate horror show occurs to the good people of Mexico which we are obviously greatly responsible for is just a sickening public policy legacy we need to end instantly. Jesus Christ.
Mexico and all of Latin America were and are acutely interested in the legalization efforts of Colorado and Washington, of course. Legalization would cripple drug cartels and would be a fantastic policy start of change in the insane drug war.
I don’t have forty bazillion words to elucidate the rest of the insanity of the drug war, Attorney General Holder, ‘n by the way that pious preaching about adhering to the law so you could bust pot clubs while letting Wall Street crooks walk was some seriously nauseating stuff. Obama won, are the politics of punching hippies really so necessary anymore? Many are waiting very earnestly for an answer, the sooner the better.