DdC

Question and Answer (DWR Updated)
It now seems likely that President Obama will be asked to answer the most popular questions as voted on by users of the online video hub were about the legalization of marijuana.



CBS News: Obama: Drugs Should be Treated as a Public Health Problem

Or No Problum Mon...

Joseph McNamara

The Joseph McNamara Collection

Gil Puder, R. I. P.



The Obama Admin's Anti-Marijuana Manifesto (thread)

Irrelevant by Pete Guither DWR
The President gave a speech tonight...
I did a quick search of key words in the prepared text:

Drug Czar-speak

Rand Corp is not named for or associated with Ayn Rand;
the name is an acronym for Research And Development.
Kashkowske should listen more to Ayn Rand...
and less to Researching and Developing ways
to perpetuate wars.... $$$

OldMan&TheWeed

Anything beyond what he said here would be political suicide.

__________________
Nintey-three percent of what I say is brilliant, factual information and seven percent is complete bullshit. Have fun deciding which is which.

John F. Kerry

thanks for truth but unfortunate nonetheless

__________________
Nasa under Obama

DdC

Well, Cannabis Would Improve the Publics Health.

Marijuana Holds Top 50 Spots In Questions For Obama
Jan 25 2011
Once again, marijuana legalization questions are dominating Change.org/YouTube's question list for President Obama, with the top 50 spots based on popular vote.

Obama Barraged By Pot Questions
YouTube Town Hall 01/27/2011

Obama did answer the question in 2009, addressing folks who asked if the president would consider legalizing marijuana to boost the economy and tax revenue.

"Can I just interrupt, Jared, before you ask the next question, just to say that we -- we took votes about which questions were going to be asked and I think 3 million people voted," he said to aide Jared Bernstein. "I have to say that there was one question that was voted on that ranked fairly high and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy -- (laughter) -- and job creation. And I don't know what this says about the online audience -- (laughter) -- but I just want -- I don't want people to think that -- this was a fairly popular question; we want to make sure that it was answered. The answer is, no, I don't think that is a good strategy -- (laughter) -- to grow our economy in 2009."
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That answer tortured legalization backers as much as being ignored, if this year's questions are an indication. Many of them knock the president for laughing at their issue.

The major drug-policy reform organizations say they have had little to do with the popularity of the pot questions and that it has largely been a "grassroots" response. The top question is from an official associated with the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, but the second- and third-most popular, judging by their YouTube pages, are clearly not connected to a mainstream advocacy group.



Drug Legalization Is a Legitimate Topic for Debate

Don't lump cannabis in with other drugs
It's luciferous to lump the relatively safe, extremely popular God-given plant cannabis (marijuana) in with heroin, cocaine and other hard drugs. The effort to continue caging responsible adult humans for using a plant is luciferous. Cannabis was never meant to be prohibited to begin with; that's why God, the ecologician, indicates he created all the seed-bearing plants saying they are all good, on literally the very first page of the Bible (see Genesis 1:11-12 and 29-30). Editorializing to perpetuate cannabis prohibition, persecution and extermination is just plain wrong.

Unfocused Reformers
Celaya on January 28, 2011

The reform community is so fractured, it's power is very diminished. This is a PERFECT example of this problem.

Marijuana is in a very unique situation to spear-head reform. Since it is obviously near harmless, it is impervious to rational attacks.

Unfortunately, some in the reform community trash this advantage by pushing for the re-legalization of ALL drugs. This strategy is doomed to failure.

After decades of reform work, the public is just now becoming ready to accept ending marijuana prohibition.

But they are a LONG way from doing so for the hard drugs. Prohibitionists know this, and that's why their "lumping" strategy works so well. They always lump marijuana in with the other drugs to cast their harms onto marijuana.

So, along comes this VERY misguided question referring to all illegal drugs. It was heavily campaigned for by several reform organizations. This played into prohibitionist hands perfectly, and gave Obama an easy out on the question. Hence, the perfect set-up for this distraction:

>>>"drugs should be seen as more of a public health issue, and that efforts should be made to reduce waiting times for drug-treatment programs and to help keep nonviolent first offenders out of prison. "On drugs, I think that a lot of times, we have been so focused on arrests, incarceration, interdiction that we don't spend as much time thinking about, How do we shrink demand?" the President said."

Marijuana consumption is not a "health problem" or needs to have its demand "shrunk." It is actually a boon to mankind, since every person who switches from alcohol (or other hard drug) to marijuana IMPROVES their life and health greatly as well as that of the communities around them.

But our ship was sunk by this disaster of a question.

Marijuana reform will save the day - soon.

Fighting for ALL drugs to be legalized is just spinning our wheels, wasting time, energy, resources and people's lives who could have been freed by focusing ONLY on marijuana.

@FoM, Celaya; drug legalization
NoCowLevel on January 28, 2011

Why shouldn't we push for the legalization of all drugs? Drug prohibition is not limited to solely cannabis. It's stupid to only legalize cannabis and continue to waste ~$30 billion a year trying to prohibit the other substances.

How about we go one step further than Portugal and legalize all drugs, thereby crippling cartels, reducing HIV/AIDs rate, increasing the number of people in rehabilitation, reduce ALL drug use, and factually educate the public about drugs? Prohibition of any kind is a waste of time and money, so why don't we be truthful and do what's right instead of doing is necessary to get only what we want?

YouTube Nation's Burning Question for Obama

Obama: Marijuana & Drug War Questions

Submit Your Video to ASA
and Join Us for Our National Organizers' Call in February

# Tell Obama To Change Marijuana Laws
# Marijuana Legalization Tops List of YouTube Questions for Obama
# Another Chance to Ask Obama About Legalization

DTrane

I dont need to justify to him about me smoking weed than he needs to justify to me smoking Newports