Obama signaled left, turns to the right on drug war
By Roger White
The initial euphoria surrounding George Bush’s departure and the election of the first Black president in US history is just about over. For decades people advocating for an end to the war against drugs have been fighting an uphill battle against law-and-order conservatives and a liberal establishment that has shown more ambiguity than moral clarity
Obama’s election gave many of us a reason to be hopeful. He had expressed some support for pot decriminalization in the past. He’d also co-sponsored the Second Chance Act in Congress, a law providing resources to prisoner reentry efforts across the US. Obama also signaled that he would end Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raids on cannabis clubs that were in compliance with their own state’s medical marijuana laws. He even admitted to smoking pot and snorting cocaine in his youth. Finally, a leader who would be a partner in the development of new approaches to drug policy.
Well, not so fast. Over the last hundred days we’ve seen the new president develop plans to ratchet up drug war border enforcement, continue DEA raids of cannabis clubs in compliance with their state’s medical marijuana laws and scoff at online advocates of pot decriminalization at a town hall on economic recovery. If this is what we have to look forward to from the Obama administration on drug policy, it’ll be a long three and a half years for drug reform advocates.
Perhaps the most ominous sign that the Obama administration plans a "business as usual" approach to war on drugs foreign policy was a
Washington Post story on April 24, 2009, indicating that the White House was requesting a $350 million appropriation from Congress to send National Guard troops to the US Mexico border to "expand the US military’s role in the war on drugs." This $350 million is in addition to the massive $1.4 billion "Merida Initiative" anti-drugtrafficking plan that Congress signed off on a year ago. The Merida Initiative funds military and law enforcement efforts in Mexico and several other Central American countries. But according to the article the fear about Obama’s request for the extra $350 million is that "the [US] military could use the money to set up a parallel counter-narcotics program with little oversight."On the campaign trail, Obama, in an effort to appeal to critical Latino constituencies in border states, was adamant about not wanting to "militarize the border." In the wake of increased drug war violence in Mexico’s border towns, and stories about kidnappings in the US linked to Mexican drug cartels, Obama has seized the opportunity to increase the presence of armed US personnel at the border. The cover story that concern over arms trafficking into Mexico from the US has driven the request from the White House to fund a new wave of "contingency" border soldiers, has little credibility. US-based arms dealers don’t walk their way to the Mexican border with duffle bags of M-16’s. They use airplanes and ships to smuggle their contraband south. Any serious attempt to disrupt arms smuggling would have to start where all serious attempts to disrupt smuggling rings start—with the banks and "legitimate" corporate manufacturers.
But so far Obama has been unwilling to take on drug money laundering by major banks or illegal gun distribution by arms manufacturers in the US. On the second point his virtual silence has been deafening. In the midst of the worst mass murder wave in over a decade, the president hasn’t even pushed for a renewal of the assault weapons ban. It should be no surprise that high-powered military arms are finding their way to the cartels.
Another campaign promise from Obama was to end DEA raids on medical marijuana shops that are in compliance with their state’s laws. Since Obama has taken office the DEA has raided four facilities in California. Their latest raid of Emmalyn’s California Cannabis Clinic in April, 2009 makes clear how loosely they plan to interpret their own conditions for federal drug enforcement. Aaron Smith of the Marijuana Policy Project claimed "despite the DEA’s vague claims about violations of state and federal laws, they apparently made no effort to contact the local authorities who monitor and license medical marijuana providers."
It appears that the problem was all of these Bush holdovers nested in the DEA that were following the old policy of targeting clubs in compliance with their own state’s marijuana laws under Michele Leonhart’s direction. When asked about the discrepancy between the Justice Department’s newly announced "hands off" policy for cannabis clubs and the DEA’s continued raids, the response from White House spokesman Nick Shapiro was that Obama "continues to appoint senior leadership to fill out the ranks of the federal government, he expects them to review their policies."
Breathtaking. I have a plan. Fire all the Bush appointees in the DEA tomorrow. Let the career bureaucrats run the place until you can find a decent, progressive replacement or, better yet, abolish the agency altogether. Now, I don’t get paid to consult or advise the president but I’m willing to give that pearl away if it saves one cannabis club worker from spending a day in jail, court or prison. And if anyone is in the dark about how low this issue falls in the hierarchy of priorities for Obama, consider that it’s three and a half months into his administration and he still has not picked a DEA replacement for Leonhart.
Could this be symptomatic of a larger attitudinal problem? Obama knows that any reasonable sounding president must be music to the ears of anyone who has been against the police state tactics and repression at the heart of the drug war over the last eight years. Could it be that our own President Obama doesn’t feel any particular need to respond to civil libertarians with any urgency because we’ll be satisfied with whatever bones he throws our way? My suspicion is that the answer to the above question is a yes which means we need to raise the bar on Obama rather than lowering it.
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