[420 Girl]

The most surprising response to Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent announcement that the federal government would cease raids or arrests in states where medical marijuana is permitted is the general lack of response.

Sure, Holder was simply making good on a pledge delivered by candidate Barrack Obama.

But on another level, the administration’s announcement could change the entire balance, or some would say historic imbalance, where drug enforcement and punishments are concerned.

Politics in practice demands nothing less than a tough posture against crime.

And so it was that presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, both of whom had admitted to once trying marijuana, were nonetheless expected to stand down any attempt to undermine national drug policy, even if that meant states approving laws outlining marijuana’s legal use for medical ends.

That 13 states have now voted to legalize marijuana use for medical reasons — principally to offset the nauseating side effects of cancer treatments — did not deter the federal government under those previous administration from staging raids on property in states where medical marijuana had been approved by elected state legislators. Raids were similarly launched against dispensaries and co-ops where marijuana was being grown for distribution to patients and with the implied consent of state and/or local laws.

The Supreme Court in 2005 upheld those federal prosecutions, ruling that states lacked the power to trump federal drug laws.

So Holder’s announcement does not alter that arrangement. The federal government still holds pre-eminent enforcement power over drug laws.

What it should do is permit the federal government to reorder priorities in a manner that will let federal drug agents and prosecutors focus limited resources on the hardest, most addictive drugs and the biggest cartels.

And what we hope it will additionally accomplish in the long turn is a change in the very dynamic of this long-time fight. Rather than more of the same get- tough approach that to date has cost taxpayers billions of dollars and imprisoned thousands of pushers and users, hard-drug addicts and casual marijuana users s alike, isn’t it time to embrace a smarter drug policy that makes proper distinctions among drugs and drug laws?

We think so.

And without Holder’s small but important first step, it may have been added years before the national conversation was properly redirected.

http://www.420magazine.com/forums/in...ot-policy.html