OBAMA'S MARIJUANA PROHIBITION ACID TEST

The parallels between the 1933 coming of Franklin Roosevelt and the
upcoming inauguration of Barack Obama must include the issue of
Prohibition: alcohol in 1933, and marijuana today. As FDR did back
then, Obama must now help end an utterly failed, socially
destructive, reactionary crusade.

Marijuana prohibition is a core cause of the nation's economic
problems. It now costs the U.S. more than tens of billions per year
to track, arrest, try, defend and imprison marijuana consumers who
pose little harm to society. The social toll soars even higher when
we account for social violence, lost work, ruined careers and damaged
families. In 2007, 775,137 people were arrested in the U.S. for mere
possession of this ancient crop, according to the FBI's uniform crime report.

Like the Prohibition on alcohol that plagued the nation from 1919 to
1933, marijuana prohibition (which essentially began in 1937) feeds
organized crime and a socially useless prison-industrial complex that
includes judges, lawyers, police, prison guards, prison contractors, and more.

A dozen states have now passed public referenda confirming medical
uses for marijuana based on voluminous research dating back 5,000
years. Confirmed medicinal uses for marijuana include treatment for
glaucoma, hypertension, arthritis, pain relief, nausea relief,
reducing muscle spasticity from spinal cord injuries and multiple
sclerosis, and diminishing tremors in multiple sclerosis patients.
Medical reports also prove smoked marijuana provides relief from
migraine headaches, depression, seizures, and insomnia, according to
NORML. In recent years its use has become critical to thousands of
cancer and AIDS sufferers who need to it to maintain their appetite
while undergoing chemotherapy.

The ban on marijuana has been extended in the U.S. to include hemp,
one of the most widely used agricultural products in human history.
Unlike many other industrial crops, hemp is extremely prolific in a
natural state, requiring no pesticides, herbicides, extraordinary
fertilizing or inappropriate irrigation. Its core uses include paper,
cloth, sails, rope, cosmetics, fuel, supplements and food. Its seeds
are a potentially huge source of bio-diesel fuel, and its leaves and
stems an obvious choice for cellulosic ethanol, both critically
important for a conversion to a Solartopian renewable energy supply.

Hemp was grown in large quantities by George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson, James Madison and many more of the nation's founders, most
of whom would likely be dumbfounded to hear it is illegal in the
United States (based on entries in Washington's agricultural diaries,
referring to the separation of male and female plants, it's likely he
and his cohorts raised an earlier form of "medicinal" marijuana as well).

The growing of hemp was mandatory in some circumstances in early
America, and again during World War II, when virtually the entire
state of Kansas was planted in it. The current ban on industrial hemp
costs the U.S. billiions of dollars in lost production and revenue
from a plant that can produce superior paper, clothing, fuel and
other critical materials at a fraction of the financial cost and
environmental damage imposed by less worthy sources.

In 1919, fundamentalist crusaders help pass the 19th Amendment,
making the sale of alcohol illegal. The ensuing 14-year Prohibition
was by all accounts a ludicrous failure epitomized by gang violence
and lethal "amateur" product that added to the death toll. Its only
real winner was organized crime.

FDR's support was critical to passing the 22d Amendment repealing
Prohibition. It ended a period of gratuitous social repression and
gave the American economy a substantial boost.

Marijuana prohibition has escalated substantially since Richard
Nixon's 1970 declaration of the War on Drugs. There was a brief
reprieve when Steve Ford, the son of President Gerald Ford appeared
on the cover of Rolling Stone barefoot and claiming that the best
place to smoke pot was in the White House. In 1980, President Jimmy
Carter's last year in office, only 338,664 were arrested for
marijuana possession. Following Reagan, President George Herbert
Walker Bush recorded a low of 260,390 marijuana possession arrests.

Ronald Reagan renewed the War on Drugs and declared his "Zero
Tolerance" policy, despite his daughter Patti Davis' claim the Gipper
smoked weed with a major donor. This utterly failed reactionary
crusade has resulted in millions of incarcerations costing billions
of dollars with, again, whose only real beneficiaries have been
organized crime and the prison-industrial complex that is its twin.

On a percentage basis, more American high school students (who report
virtually unlimited access to marijuana and a wide range of other
drugs) smoke more pot than students in Holland, where it is legal.
Because so many Americans use it, and it is so readily available,
marijuana prohibition can only be seen as a virtually universal
assault on the basic liberties of our citizenry.

In a 2005 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services survey, more
than 97 million Americans admitted to having tried pot, like Barack.

Barack Obama has made it clear in his book Dreams From My Father, he
has smoked---and inhaled---marijuana (he is also apparently addicted
to a far more dangerous drug, tobacco). In the long run, marijuana
should be taxed. Like alcohol and tobacco, a minimum age for legal
access should be set at 21.

The War on Drugs as a whole has been a catastrophic failure. The
violence and repression it continues to impose on the American public
need to be ended.

No part of that war is more destructive or less defensible than the
marijuana laws. Like FDR, Obama needs to demonstrate the courage and
good sense to end this insane, absurd legal disaster. Along with
ending the war in Iraq, there are few single steps Obama could take
toward restoring prosperity and sanity to American society than
ending the war on this age-old medicinal herb.