I'm having a very hard time understanding why our President via Executive Order, with a stroke of his pen, does not revise the Schedule One designation of marijuana, thus making medical marijuana legal across our Nation-- and available for the thousands of sick and dying people who could benefit from this.
The notion "he's waiting on the states to do it is total nonsense; for proof merely look at Michigan where voters in 2008 passed a state-wide referendum approving the use of medical marijuana-- there is not one single dispensary OPEN in the state of Michigan.. it's now 2014; going on six years since the passage of the referendum.
This is an old article, but I think it's topical given recent events in Colorado; and the TOTAL lack of medical marijuana in the state of Michigan.
Attorney General Eric Holder was a guest of The Huffington Post at the correspondents’ dinner. Before it began, a HuffPost reporter noted to Holder that Obama’s reference to “congressional law” was misleading because the executive branch could simply remove marijuana from its “schedule one” designation, thereby recognizing its medical use.
“That’s right,” Holder said.
After Kimmel’s speech, a Holder deputy told HuffPost that there was no coordinated war on medical marijuana, but that some individual clinics were breaking both state and federal laws.
In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Obama provided a factually wrong answer that radically distorted the nature of federal law in an attempt to deflect criticism for the federal crackdown on medical marijuana. Obama claimed he “can’t nullify Congressional law” when it comes to medical marijuana, even though the Controlled Substance Act actually gives the Executive branch the authority to “reschedule” (reclassify) marijuana without Congressional action. By simply moving marijuana to a lower schedule the Obama administration could make medical marijuana legal under federal law. Obama would not need to nullify this Congressional law, because Congress already gave him the authority to change marijuana’s legal status.
WHY does Obama
not demonstrate some
leadership and simply do what needs to be done? He's not up for re-election, right??
What exactly is stopping him from issuing this Executive Order?
I've a good idea what is stopping our President-- I want to see if anyone here gets it.
The "let the state's do it" canard is that that-- a weak canard. if our President truly believes in state's rights, then why the busting of and harassment of dispensaries in California by federal authorities?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
http://www.rollingstone.com/...