Reason.com: “It is not hard to see how critics of the war on drugs got the impression that Barack Obama was sympathetic to their cause. Throughout his public life as an author, law professor, and politician, Obama has said and done things that suggested he was not a run-of-the-mill drug warrior. In his 1995 memoir Dreams From My Father, the future president talked candidly about his own youthful drug use. . . . As a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2004, Obama called the war on drugs ‘an utter failure’ and advocated marijuana decriminalization. As a U.S. senator, he cosponsored legislation aimed at reducing the federal government’s draconian crack cocaine sentences. . . . Obama stood apart from hard-line prohibitionists even when he began running for president. In 2007 and 2008, he bemoaned America’s high incarceration rate, warned that the racially disproportionate impact of drug prohibition undermines legal equality, advocated a ‘public health’ approach to drugs emphasizing treatment and training instead of prison, repeatedly indicated that he would take a more tolerant position regarding medical marijuana than George W. Bush, and criticized the Bush administration for twisting science to support policy.”
This excellent article is a history of Barack Obama’s statements on marijuana, the drug war and the Department of Justice’s recent actions to shut down dispensaries. All proponents of medical marijuana should read the article so they are informed about the President’s double speak and 180 degree turn against the legalization of medical marijuana.
