I would have bet money Obama would have moved it to Schedule III before leaving office.
Every time a Republican wins the White House, people instantly put on rose-colored glasses regarding the previous Democrat in office (e.g. Bill Clinton was Jesus during the Bush administration, and it was two decades before people started criticizing his criminal justice record).
No, Obama didn't embrace drug decriminalization. He was too busy bombing Syria and expanding the surveillance state. "Better than the current guy" does not mean a politician was on the right side of everything.
(I mean, if we're just latching on to a word or phrase in the previous post, to talk about things irrelevant to its point for cheap upvotes...)
Your argument is that we should aspire to merely "just better than the other guys", with the subtext that Democrats aren't really any better than Republicans.
'muhfuhkah' pointed out that it IS better. Which is worth pointing out in a two party system.
We just watched a whole bunch of people make your same arguments, saying Obama wasn't perfect so whatever they're all the same, and as a result we elected a guy who's much worse in every possible way. Great job, everyone.
Parent post was surprised that Obama did not legalize drugs. Presumably due to binary thinking ("correct" politician does "correct" thing, etc). But even in a two-party system, "correct" does not equal "perfect". It's dangerous to presume that a politician's beliefs and actions will always line up with your preference, just because he or she is not with the other party that you oppose.
That is all. It is not even remotely a statement that all politicians and parties are equivalent. My sentence that he quoted from explicitly says the opposite, for pete's sake. You guys are just venting.
This is not a safe presumption. Michael Botticelli (former director of the drug czar’s office) came out and said that the administration was considering it, but it was too dangerous, politically.
The Obama administration pushed lots of sentencing reform legislation, so it would follow that they might decriminalize cannabis as well. It's not just because they were democrats.
>No, Obama didn't embrace drug decriminalization
We can easily find examples to refute this, 2010's Fair Sentencing Act and Holder's 2013 memo regarding mandatory sentences in low-level drug cases come to mind.
We are just now getting able to look at the Nixon and Ford administrations. With any president, there are a ton of people who love them and a ton of people who hate them -- no matter what they were actually like. To be able to dispassionately talk about their strengths, weaknesses, and legacy requires some time. Most of those folks have to die off.
It kinda makes me sad the best we have to say about him after 8 years is well he is not Bush. I had really bought into the whole hope and change rhetoric. But maybe it was my fault for being so gullible...
* Universal health insurance != universal health care
[0] http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/11/the-number-of-americans-witho...
I think he did a lot of good things he doesn't get credit for but this issue seems like a missed opportunity.
It is disappointing. Are any cases on their way to the Supreme Court yet?
http://www.npr.org/2016/08/10/489509471/dea-rejects-attempt-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removal_of_cannabis_from_Sched...
Relevant commentary, I think: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legali...
> HHS determined that marijuana has a “high potential for abuse” and “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,” leading the DEA to reject the petition in 2011. The petition was filed nearly a decade earlier, in 2002.
So based on a request from 2002, they decided in 2011 not to act, which continues to restrict research, which makes it harder to get evidence to support a new petition...
Sometimes you gotta just love government's ability to tie itself in knots.
"Gonzales v. Raich (previously Ashcroft v. Raich), 545 U.S. 1 (2005), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court ruling that under the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution, Congress may criminalize the production and use of homegrown cannabis even if states approve its use for medicinal purposes."
Gonzalez vs. Raich was not a ruling on the specific drug. It was a ruling on whether or not Congress (and, by extension, the executive) can apply the interstate commerce clause to the regulation of drugs, even if they don't cross state lines.
It's also a pretty straightforward consequence of Wickard v. Filburn, which is basically the same thing for wheat in the 1940s.
They could rule that all drug laws are illegal, but they couldn't change the schedule for marijuana.
As far as I know, no US court would seriously consider a lawsuit that would invalidate drug regulation, so SCOTUS will never see such a case.
Now, of course the Supreme Court will come down and say federal government law supersedes state law, as the constitution specifies.
I'm no lawyer, but I do think there would be a nuanced way to argue that the states should have the freedom to self-regulate, as long as they don't distribute across borders. I know there is case law that has already said that the Feds have jurisdiction even in this case, but it still could be argued.
I also have a very skewed concept of how the American public as a whole views marijuana but I can't imagine it is overwhelmingly negative
http://www.gallup.com/poll/196550/support-legal-marijuana.as...
That claims it's up to 60% now.