Did Obama Just Screw Weed Legalization by Supporting It?

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The Obama administration's relative silence on the issue of marijuana legalization has been good for the cause. But in a recent New Yorker article the president's stated position on the topic evolved. “I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol,” he said, adding, “It’s important for [state-level legalization] to go forward because it’s important for society not to have a situation in which a large portion of people have at one time or another broken the law and only a select few get punished.” He tempered this support by gingerly detracting from legalization advocacy, saying that those who claim marijuana to be a panacea are “overstating the case.” He also referred to “some difficult line-drawing issues” between weed and other illicit drugs, paying homage to the classic, perhaps arcane argument often wielded by conservatives. As cautious as he was in stating it, Obama’s support for legalization, and more strongly decriminalization, may actually be more damaging to the effort than his silence. If we’ve learned one thing from the past six years of Obama, it’s that conservatives find it easiest to irrationally rally against him on social issues like this one. Until now, the state-level legislative efforts to legalize weed have not included retroactively reducing the sentences of those currently imprisoned on marijuana-related charges, as pointed out by a recent LA Times piece: “It’s far easier to sell voters on the financial benefits of creating a lucrative new marijuana industry than it is to persuade them to open up the prison gates and set convicts free,” writes Matthew Fleischer. The economic benefit of legalization has gained bipartisan support because it’s hard to argue with the revenue opportunity, and advocates are doubling their efforts while the overall fear of marijuana is at an all-time low. By publicly focusing his interest in legalization on the social issue of disproportionate prosecution of poor minorities, Obama threatens to cast the debate back into a less quantifiable realm, giving his opponents an open chance to fight him on it. Thus far in his tenure, Obama has dealt with the most pig-headed opposition when he has argued for social change, which Republicans can easily angle as liberal, or even socialist, drumming up the support of a fearful and ignorant constituency. The most poignant example is his landmark healthcare reform, which continues to face sensational arguments that attribute the legislation to an unidentified ulterior motive on the part of his administration. Most media call these arguments political because it wouldn’t be quite as proper to shed light on the obvious reason that Obama faces so much opposition in conservative American circles—he’s black. Obama even acknowledges this in his New Yorker interview, saying, “There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black President.” What those same folks will like even less is the idea of a black president who wants to free other black men from prison. Obama merely acknowledged the injustice of the way we currently prosecute marijuana offenders, but it won’t take too much effort for pundits to spin that into an accusation of racial favoritism, or perhaps something even worse (they can be so damn creative). We can already see the vestiges of unreasonable interpretation from Fox News. The most important takeaway of Obama’s statements for state-level legalization efforts is that the federal government will likely remain hands-off as previously stated, and that legalization in Colorado and Washington state are being viewed as experiments that could potentially influence federal law. With 58 percent of the country favoring legalization according to a recent Gallup poll, and a national atmosphere that is softening to the idea of cannabis as a medicine, it feels like the war is all but won, but it’s dangerous to underestimate the contrarianism that has mired so many of Obama’s efforts for social change. Having the president’s imprimatur on the issue might be symbolic for people who have advocated against the misguided, costly, and racist war on drugs, but it might also signal the beginning of the backlash. It’s immensely important that prior marijuana offenders see the benefits of the move toward legalization, but in the current climate, it could mean the difference between bipartisan support and a liberal uphill battle. @ImYourKid