And here he is again at the 1:25 mark saying that as president he would not waste federal resources going after medical marijuana dispensaries because that money should be used to go after violent crime and terrorist offences.
And then we get this yesterday :"Feds warn marijuana shops close to schools"and here is the actual letter that was sent to the shops. The president is doing EXACTLY what he said he would not do: Allocating Justice Department resources to go after medical marijuana dispensaries and threatening them with prosecution.
Now personally I don't have a problem with marijuana and neither do 42% of all Americans who have tried it at some point in their lives. Neither are it's effects as deadly as the legal drug, cigarettes, which according to the Center for Disease Control:
More deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than by all deaths from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides, and murders combined.But marijuana convictions provide the government with over 800,000 new prisoners each year for the prison system which is becoming increasingly privatized. Imagine for a second if tobacco was illegal and had the same penalties as marijuana. How many of our friends and family members would be getting locked up?
But back to the point. It seems to me that this is another question of federal versus state power. The people of Colorado voted to legalize marijuana for medical use in 2000. Now I have been to Colorado and marijuana is basically semi-legal for people who get the ID card from their doctor. I have also heard stories of people able to obtain these cards from their doctors because they have "migranes ;)". But I believe this is up to the people of Colorado to decide and not the federal government. Especially a federal government that was elected with lies to the voters in Colorado about issues that would affect them.
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