The Democratic National Committee thought it would be great sport and smart politics to run a lighthearted ad in which the President calls movie characters "Harold" and "Kumar," who are lamely stereotyped "stoners," to ask them to help him get the Democratic Convention "right."
Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) alumni Shaleen Title, Chris Wallis and Andrew Livingston (I am proud to call all of them friends and colleagues) have produced a wonderful video of how the call might have gone if Pres. Obama had called a real marijuana user, not the drug czar's stereotypical vision of one.
The Obama call to Harold and Kumar ad is perhaps one of the dumbest moves by a campaign that has clearly lost its touch with the young because it draws renewed attention by young voters to Obama's cumulative insults and disregard of marijuana users and their political concerns. When Obama's early efforts to communicate with the public in direct online question format produced enormous support for marijuana legalization questions he joked that this support was a quirky and trivial artifact of the online world. In every other later social media communications efforts, when such questions were submitted and drew the largest number of "likes" or other approval, the questions were pointedly ignored or simply removed from the websites in a classic "1984," Orwellian consignment to the "memory hole" of invisibility.
Aside from the insults, the mockery, and the contemptuous disregard of marijuana users' concerns, the substance of the policy has been shocking, especially regarding medical use of marijuana. Obama pledged in his campaign to honor state medical marijuana laws. But he abdicated control of the Justice Department which has raided and shut down more dispensaries in 3 1/2 years than Pres. G.W. Bush's Justice Department (remember Ashcroft and Gonzales?) shut down in 8 years.
Federal marijuana prosecutions have increased to almost 7000 prosecutions a year in FY 2011, eclipsing all other drugs. And over two thirds of federal marijuana prosecutions are directed at Hispanics. White federal marijuana defendants are only 22.6 percent of the total, a rather blatant racial disparity.
Over seventy percent of House Democrats have voted to abandon the Administration's anti-medical marijuana policy, and it has been pointedly criticized by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, the party's most successful fund raiser.
Others will write about the wrongheadedness of this crusade from a medical policy or constitutional law perspective, but the political myopia is heartbreaking for Democrats and supporters of Obama. The voters have passed medical marijuana initiatives every time they have had the chance with the exception of a quixotic unfunded initiative in South Dakota. Numerous state legislatures have passed and governors have signed such laws in Hawaii, New Mexico, New Jersey, Delaware, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut and the District of Columbia. (Maryland's legislature passed a watered down medical marijuana law.)
The timing could not be worse -- this is going to spill over the convention coverage in a bad way for Obama -- and he and his cynical campaign deserve it!
Wednesday, September 05, 2012
President Obama calls "Harold and Kumar"
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Political success: perseverance and outreach
The University of Maryland at College Park has adopted a "Good Samaritan" policy. In order to encourage students to call for emergency help when a student has passed out or otherwise may be endangered by drugs or alcohol, the policy removes the threat of punishment. This is a triumph of evidence-based health promotion over the ineffective "let's punish them to send a message" paradigm of university bureaucrats steeped in zero tolerance slogans, after at least a four-year struggle.
How this policy was adopted by the university is briefly recounted in this editorial by the official university newspaper, The Diamondback.
The editorial recognizes that the leaders and members of Maryland's chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, beginning with Stacia Cosner, executed the elementary political ground rules of expanding your base, enlisting allies, and building an organization that will persevere after you have to move on.
Some might think it an overstatement when I say that this exemplifies Students for Sensible Drug Policy. And yet around the nation SSDP chapters have demonstrated on numerous campuses the same success in changing campus policies.
When one considers university political activity is the primary training ground for the nation's future political leadership, SSDP stands out as the national organization that most effectively teaches the real world lessons that will enable America to survive as a democratic republic for another generation. This is a politics for results, not for show or self-aggrandizement.
If you are a student, you still have the opportunity to register to attend the SSDP National Training Conference, not surprisingly at the University of Maryland at College Park, March 17-19, 2011. Go to www.ssdp.org to for details and to register.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
SSDP confronts Kerlikowske at National Press Club
Daniel Pacheco, a student from Colombia and a member of the Georgetown University Students for Sensible Drug Policy chapter, respectfully challenged Gil Kerlikowke, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, on Sept. 16, 2010 at the National Press Club, on the suggestion of the past Presidents of Colombia and Mexico, that legalizing drugs would defund the violent cartels that are ravaging Mexico. See the YouTube clip here.
Kerlikowske said a couple of times that the cartel revenues from marijuana were a "small part" of their income, and that taking away this revenue would not transform these criminal organizations.
Pacheco, politely retaking the microphone, noted that revenues from marijuana amounted to 60 to 70 percent of the cartel's total revenue -- not a small part -- and that to summarily dismiss the suggestions of the former Presidents was disrespectful to the victims of the cartel violence.
Kerlikowske then said that the 60-70 percent estimate was released by ONDCP in 2006, based on 1997 data, and therefore was out of date. He offered no better, more recent number or alternative number, and thus simply repudiated data and analysis generated by his own office.
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