Obama OK's California's Self-Medicating Marijuana Law

Another bubble is being blown in California, one that could have more euphoric aftereffects. How much money will get pumped into states with legal self-characterized medical marijuana and how far the legislation will spread into other states before the government reverses its decades long stance on the dangers of marijuana and allows the necessary federal research to occur is anyone’s guess.
And on Sunday the Obama Justice Department announced that the federal government would not intervene in the 14 state medical marijuana social experiment, effectively giving support to the measures in contradiction to federal laws that outlaws cannabis and hemp, classifying them as having no medicinal value and similar in addictive qualities to heroin.
Marijuana has been big business on the West Coast from Vancouver to California for decades, booming prior to 1996 with Canadian marijuana coming across the border from Canada as well as legalization activist Marc Emery’s business clandestinely sending high quality marijuana seeds into the U.S. from Canada where possession of seeds is a legal grey area.
With a similar loophole included, California voters approved proposition 215 by popular referendum to legalize marijuana for medical use in 1996. The ambiguous federal status of marijuana as a schedule 1 controlled substance, defined as having no medicinal value, and also having a federal medical distribution program and the wording of California’s law has de facto legalized marijuana in California. There are no FDA approved uses of marijuana as a result of prohibition and strict limitations on research. Physicians are unable to actually prescribe marijuana and rely on patients for validation that it effectively treats a specific condition. Voters’ original intent was to allow cannabis to be used to treat terminally ill AIDs and cancer patients yet what has been allowed to develop is something entirely different. Since 1996 an estimated 2100 dispensaries have been opened across California, more than Starbucks and Mcdonalds combined, and featured in many cable news reports showing Amsterdam-like café’s.

This month in California 34 people were arrested in a ring that turned 50 $400-600,000 suburban homes into growing operations with several suspects fleeing to China raising questions about their immigration status. No one believes in the war on drugs anymore. In a recent PBS news piece when asked what the dangers of marijuana are, the marijuana enforcement officer cited decreased productivity and its danger to kids’ “mentality.” The interviewer simply looked at him like there was no need for further questions.
If in a recession tax revenue from marijuana isn’t tempting, at least taxing hemp should be. And with 5 times more arrests than whites for drug offenses, while representing a small minority of the population, hundreds of thousands of African Americans are jailed and lose the right to vote each year for non-violent crimes, many related to marijuana. With Obama’s latest move a nail has been put in the coffin of our racist drug war in California, and hopefully soon to be New Jersey.