Obama says marijuana ‘no more dangerous than alcohol’

[RainDog]

208. Because, as the TPM link notes

Cannabis as an illegal substance is a systemic way that African Americans are targeted for discrimination in this nation. In the TPM link (already here in another post), Obama focuses on the research that Michelle Alexander did for a book called, The New Jim Crow.

During the old Jim Crow era, African Americans (mostly male) were arrested on trumped up charges and put on chain gangs in the south.

The new Jim Crow, our drug laws and our philosophy for dealing with drug abuse, has created a system of private prisons in rural areas where African Americans are relocated, denied the right to vote, and held in bondage - for something that white middle and upper class youth and young adults (the primary age group for those who use marijuana) do without any repercussion.

Obama's focus is on this issue of disparity or injustice within our legal system, and that's why he mentions that alcohol, which is legal and unscheduled, is more dangerous than marijuana.

We currently have an unsustainable situation in which two states have legalized, but the federal govt. has not either legalized or simply decriminalized by removing from the drug schedule of the Controlled Substances Act. Democrats in the House have tried to pass legislation to regulate cannabis like alcohol and remove marijuana from the drug schedule.

Obama is indicating support for this legislation.

Cannabis legalization is a big deal. The majority of drug arrests in this nation are for marijuana, and of those, 80% are for simple possession. We've spent TRILLIONS of dollars on a failed drug war, made criminals out of people for ingesting something safer than aspirin, and, by our laws, supported the development of international cartels that murder innocents at will to terrorize nations... like our neighbor, Mexico. We force other nations to keep cannabis illegal - and other nations have decided to ignore this bad policy, just as CO and WA voters have chosen.

So, this is an issue that needs to be resolved, and we're all better off if it's resolved by a Democratic administration.

The lesson of history is that draconian laws can be made worse - as Reagan and Republicans in Congress did - and it's taken all these years to get to the point where we can undo some of that damage - which the Obama administration has already done on other aspects of drug policy.