White House Press Secretary thinks “professional left” who criticize Obama “ought to be drug tested”

That "professional left" is what some might call "your base", Mr. President, and they think you should legalize marijuana.

Washington political news outlet The Hill reports on the recent “professional left” remarks made by the Obama White House’s press secretary Robert Gibbs.  Gibbs was expressing frustration at progressive activists who are complaining that the president hasn’t lived up to campaign promises on a number of issues.

The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”

Over 850,000 of these people will likely be arrested this year and branded "criminal" for the rest of their lives.

I don’t disagree that comparing Obama to Bush is crazy; Bush could push the exact bill he wanted through Congress and Obama can pronounce “nuclear”.  It’s the “drug users are crazy” slur, the “drug test” variant of the “what have you been smoking?” that offends me.  It’s that joking about these drug tests that ruin thousands of lives is a response from an official addressing the disappointment in the president felt by the people who voted for him.  Considering the vast majority of people who use “drugs” are using cannabis and the tests for “drugs” most often find cannabis metabolites, he’s talking about us, the 22 million* Americans who will use cannabis this year.

Full disclosure: I am one of the “professional left”** and attended that Netroots Nation conference Gibbs is obliquely referencing, representing NORML on a marijuana policy panel.

Republican, Democrat, we still get arrested. (We still have another year worth of George Bush data to collect.)

But NORML is a non-partisan organization, just as arresting marijuana consumers is a bi-partisan shame (4.9 million under Clinton, 6.2 million under Bush, but Clinton’s overall increase in the annual rate was +90% from beginning to end of his term while Bush’s was +17% between 2001 and 2008; we still await the 2009 final year arrest numbers which chronicle the marijuana arrests from the year before… think of the graph as “arrests up to 2009″, not “arrests up to and including 2009″.)

Gibbs said the professional left is not representative of the progressives who organized, campaigned, raised money and ultimately voted for Obama.

Legalization is actually pretty popular right now. More popular than the President and Congress.

Well, we know what President Obama and Robert Gibbs think of those of us who “ought to be drug tested”, especially us online activists in the “professional left” who helped get him elected.  We’re chuckled at when we suggest legalizing marijuana (see videos below), even as more than half of America on some polls – not just Left Blogsylvania – are beginning to think it is a damn good idea and California is voting on the issue this November.

Legalization is more popular than the Congress and the President – who once, like us, was just one bust away from being “Barry the Drug Criminal” for life – so maybe equating our criticisms of government to drug-induced psychosis isn’t the smartest political move.

One marijuana arrest in their past would have indelibly altered the lives of 41% of America, including these three fellows.

This is not to ignore the millions of cannabis consumers who find themselves on the right side of the aisle, the Libertarians and true small government, personal responsibility, states rights Republicans, who we count as our ideological allies in ending adult marijuana prohibition.  There are 102 million of us who’ve tried cannabis, including the last three presidents and eight of fifteen of the last major party candidates for president and vice president.***  Right now, our issue is the only thing on which members of the Tea Party and the Netroots Nation can agree on.  Somebody is going to get wise and start courting our votes.

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Will Marijuana Legalization Voters Help Democrats this November?

Ryan Grim at Huffington Post reports on the notion going round political circles that California’s Prop 19 (and, to a lesser extent, medical marijuana initiatives in Arizona and South Dakota, and dispensaries for medical marijuana in Oregon) will be for the Democrats what anti-Gay Marriage Equality amendments were for Republicans – the turn-out-the-base social wedge issue that helps their candidates on the ballot.

A survey making the rounds among strategists, which has yet to be made public, indicates that pot could be just the enticement many of these voters need: Surge voters, single women under 40 and Hispanics all told America Votes pollsters that if a legalization measure were on the Colorado ballot, they’d be more likely to come out to vote. Forty-five percent of surge voters and 47 percent of single women said they’d be more interested in voting if the question was on the ballot. Most of these were energetic, with 36 and 30 percent, respectively, saying they’d be “much more interested” in coming out to vote. Roughly half said it would make no difference. For Latinos, 32 percent said they’d be “much more interested” in voting and another 12 percent said they’d be somewhat more attracted to the idea of trudging to the polls.

Surge voters said they would support the measure by a margin of 63-35. Young single women would back it 68-31. Latinos, meanwhile, oppose it 52-46, according to the survey. “Whether it can pass or not is another question, but I think it’s clear that a marijuana legalization measure has the potential to increase turnout among voting groups that are critical to Democratic success in November,” said a Colorado Democratic operative, who, like most strategists employed by campaigns, prefers not to talk about marijuana on the record — highlighting the difficulty Democrats will have threading the political needle.

Turning out an extra few percent can be the difference between winning and losing in swing states, a reality Karl Rove exploited in 2004 by papering the nation with anti-gay marriage initiatives.

I think the Democrats are in for a surprise. See, Karl Rove and the Republicans really believed in the initiatives they were pushing. They had a frame for it – “one man one woman” – that resonated with their voters and the overall worldview espoused by most of their downticket candidates. So when that Religious Right base came out in 2004, energized to vote against dreaded homosexuals and for the continuation of all that was good, true, and Christian in America, they had George W. Bush and a whole slew of Republicans to vote for that echoed that sentiment.

What do Democrats have to offer the cannabis consumer who comes out for a 2010 election? Unlike Rove and the Republicans, the Democrats don’t really believe in these initiatives (publicly). Sen. Boxer, Sen. Feinstein (a former mayor of San Francisco, c’mon now!), and former Gov. / current AG Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown all publicly oppose Prop 19 (really, Jerry? You toked with Linda Ronstadt! Please!) Democrats can’t even go on the record to discuss this strategy. They haven’t yet framed it other than to murmur a bit about tax revenues, which is a lousy frame easily countered with “Well, if taxing crack made the cities money, should we legalize that?” Tax revenues resonate well within Assembly committee hearings, but they make for a ghoulish appeal to the average voter.
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Washington Post: Furor Over an Obama Puff Piece

From today’s Washington Post’s Reliable Sources:

It was only a matter of time before someone combined a certain memorable image of a young future president with a jokey twist on his campaign slogan … to come up with a message that Barack Obama definitely did not approve.

The folks at the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws got there first. For their annual conference poster, they took an old photo of cool-dude college freshman Obama puffing away — on a regular cigarette, mind you — and tweaked it just ever so slightly to fit their message: “Yes We Cannabis.”

Think it might be a problem for the president (who opposes legalization)? It’s really a problem for the photographer. Lisa Jack, an Obama classmate at Occidental College, snapped the image in 1980, one in a series of photos that never saw the light of day until she debuted them in Time’s 2008 Person of the Year issue. She had no idea her photo had been appropriated by NORML until we told her Tuesday.

“They do not have my permission,” said Jack, a psychology professor in Minnesota. These photos “are absolutely not to be used in this way. … I really made a grand effort to do this properly, and I’m very irritated. If I’d wanted these to be used for political purposes, I’d have sold them to Hillary years ago.”

NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre cheerfully acknowledged the lift by artist Sonia Sanchez, who summoned the psychedelic aesthetic of ’60s rock posters. “With very little adulteration, she placed what appears to be a cannabis cigarette” in the president’s hand, St. Pierre said. But she made few other changes: Obama “almost made the photograph for us.”

Everyone who attends the September conference in San Francisco will get a poster; NORML is also selling them on the Web ($25 for an 18-by-24-inch with St. Pierre’s autograph, $15 without). Can they do that? St. Pierre admits they didn’t get permission, but “our lawyers thought it was adulterated enough to comply with the fair use laws.”

We’ll see. Shepard Fairey made more dramatic changes to the Obama photo he turned into the now-famous “HOPE” collage — but he’s still embroiled in bitter litigation with the Associated Press, which owns the original image. The AP accused him in federal court of “blatant copying.” And yes, Jack has already called the lawyers for Getty Images, which oversees her photo’s copyright.

Jack, whose photos now have a gallery show in L.A., grudgingly admits “it’s really cool” that the images are already iconic enough to steal. She’d love to see Fairey do a work-up on them — with permission, of course.

A brief history about the series of Obama photos is found at The Huffington Post.

WSJ: WHITE HOUSE CZAR CALLS FOR END TO ‘WAR ON DRUGS’

by Gary Fields, (Source:Wall Street Journal)

14 May 2009
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Kerlikowske Says Analogy Is Counterproductive; Shift Aligns With Administration Preference for Treatment Over Incarceration

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S.  is fighting “a war on drugs,” a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use.

In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation’s drug issues.

“Regardless of how you try to explain to people it’s a ‘war on drugs’ or a ‘war on a product,’ people see a war as a war on them,” he said.  “We’re not at war with people in this country.”

View Full Image Gil Kerlikowske, the new White House drug czar, signaled Wednesday his openness to rethinking the government’s approach to fighting drug use.

Mr.  Kerlikowske’s comments are a signal that the Obama administration is set to follow a more moderate — and likely more controversial — stance on the nation’s drug problems.  Prior administrations talked about pushing treatment and reducing demand while continuing to focus primarily on a tough criminal-justice approach.

The Obama administration is likely to deal with drugs as a matter of public health rather than criminal justice alone, with treatment’s role growing relative to incarceration, Mr.  Kerlikowske said.

Already, the administration has called for an end to the disparity in how crimes involving crack cocaine and powder cocaine are dealt with.  Critics of the law say it unfairly targeted African-American communities, where crack is more prevalent.

The administration also said federal authorities would no longer raid medical-marijuana dispensaries in the 13 states where voters have made medical marijuana legal.  Agents had previously done so under federal law, which doesn’t provide for any exceptions to its marijuana prohibition.

During the presidential campaign, President Barack Obama also talked about ending the federal ban on funding for needle-exchange programs, which are used to stem the spread of HIV among intravenous-drug users.

The drug czar doesn’t have the power to enforce any of these changes himself, but Mr.  Kerlikowske plans to work with Congress and other agencies to alter current policies.  He said he hasn’t yet focused on U.S.  policy toward fighting drug-related crime in other countries.

Mr.  Kerlikowske was most recently the police chief in Seattle, a city known for experimenting with drug programs.  In 2003, voters there passed an initiative making the enforcement of simple marijuana violations a low priority.  The city has long had a needle-exchange program and hosts Hempfest, which draws tens of thousands of hemp and marijuana advocates.

Seattle currently is considering setting up a project that would divert drug defendants to treatment programs.

Mr.  Kerlikowske said he opposed the city’s 2003 initiative on police priorities.  His officers, however, say drug enforcement — especially for pot crimes — took a back seat, according to Sgt.  Richard O’Neill, president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild.  One result was an open-air drug market in the downtown business district, Mr.  O’Neill said.

“The average rank-and-file officer is saying, ‘He can’t control two blocks of Seattle, how is he going to control the nation?’ ” Mr.  O’Neill said.

Sen.  Tom Coburn, the lone senator to vote against Mr.  Kerlikowske, was concerned about the permissive attitude toward marijuana enforcement, a spokesman for the conservative Oklahoma Republican said.  [drug war]

Others said they are pleased by the way Seattle police balanced the available options.  “I think he believes there is a place for using the criminal sanctions to address the drug-abuse problem, but he’s more open to giving a hard look to solutions that look at the demand side of the equation,” said Alison Holcomb, drug-policy director with the Washington state American Civil Liberties Union.

Mr.  Kerlikowske said the issue was one of limited police resources, adding that he doesn’t support efforts to legalize drugs.  He also said he supports needle-exchange programs, calling them “part of a complete public-health model for dealing with addiction.”

Mr.  Kerlikowske’s career began in St.  Petersburg, Fla.  He recalled one incident as a Florida undercover officer during the 1970s that spurred his thinking that arrests alone wouldn’t fix matters.

“While we were sitting there, the guy we’re buying from is smoking pot and his toddler comes over and he blows smoke in the toddler’s face,” Mr.  Kerlikowske said.  “You go home at night, and you think of your own kids and your own family and you realize” the depth of the problem.

Since then, he has run four police departments, as well as the Justice Department’s Office of Community Policing during the Clinton administration.

Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group that supports legalization of medical marijuana, said he is “cautiously optimistic” about Mr.  Kerlikowske.  “The analogy we have is this is like turning around an ocean liner,” he said.  “What’s important is the damn thing is beginning to turn.”

James Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest law-enforcement labor organization, said that while he holds Mr.  Kerlikowske in high regard, police officers are wary.

“While I don’t necessarily disagree with Gil’s focus on treatment and demand reduction, I don’t want to see it at the expense of law enforcement.  People need to understand that when they violate the law there are consequences.”

First-Ever Nationwide Pro-Marijuana TV Ad Campaign Is Launched in Conjunction with ’4/20′

Boulder, Colorado: I have every reason to believe that ’4/20′ in 2009 will be the biggest and most momentous one to date as NORML launches 7,770 nationwide TV ads that advocate for cannabis law reform; NORML expects record numbers of supporters to join the organization for the celebratory one-day price of $4.20 because, I believe, there is a palpable zeitgeist in America right now favoring reform; the Obama administration appears amenable to some cannabis law reforms in ways that no prior president since Jimmy Carter has embraced; and lastly, with NORML’s nearly 600,000 ‘friends’ on Facebook and nearly 67,000 MySpace, more Americans than ever before who are keen on cannabis can create a viral effect that benefits reform.

Here in Boulder between 10,000-15,000 students and activists are expected to celebrate in what has become the biggest 4/20 event in the world.

Heck, the New York Times has already posted a profile of 4/20 for today’s paper, where they came yesterday for interview and photos to the University of Colorado at Boulder’s National Marijuana Forum. This portends well to what will be an insane day in the media for pro-reform groups like NORML (I’ve already got 35 interviews scheduled…) as I was also asked to pen an essay for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered that I assume will be published today. (UPDATE! Read and comment on Allen’s essay here.)

I dare say we as a country are finally ‘getting it’ regarding the clear and obvious need to reform our misguided cannabis laws.

Thanks to the hundreds of NORML supporters who donated what they could to buy ad time to launch a timely 4/20 ad campaign, you’re the green that keeps NORML all grassroots, all of the time!

Have an enjoyable and safe 4/20 from the staff of NORML!

Legalization: Yes We Can – Jason Druss

[UPDATE: Yes, the part at the end where the young lady giggles has been edited out for the airing on TV.  I will work to find a copy to place on our site. -- Russ Belville, National Outreach Coordinator]

Marijuana Advocacy Group Launches TV Campaign on ‘4/20’

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Foundation (NORML Foundation) a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy organization, established in 1997, is purchasing advertising time on selective cable outlets to underscore the urgency of decriminalizing cannabis.

The NORML Foundation launched this pro-marijuana ad campaign to create further political pressure on the federal government to recognize 1) the ever-increasing support of Americans who favor cannabis legalization, 2) the clear sea change of cannabis laws that’s been happening at the state level since Californians voted in favor of medicinal access to cannabis in 1996, and 3) to rally cannabis consumers and anti-prohibitionists on April 20, a date on the calendar that has organically become a national day to both publicly celebrate cannabis as well as protest 70 years of prohibition.

The featured ad is the winner of NORML’s recent user-generated-content contest that asks NORML supporters: ‘What would you say to President Obama about legalizing marijuana?’

New Jersey college student and up and coming filmmaker Jason Druss created the winning submission and is the recipient of the contest’s $3,500 cash grand prize after 6500 votes were cast on NORML’s webpage. “It’s time for President Obama to endorse cannabis law reform where it is legally controlled and taxed like alcohol and tobacco products,” stated Jason Druss. “It’s shocking that students can lose out from federal student loans for possessing a few joints, when pot’s been part of the college culture for decades.’

Marijuana, By the Numbers…
Thirteen states (with a population base of 115 million Americans) have decriminalized cannabis possession; thirteen states (with a population base of 75 million Americans) now have medical cannabis laws. Additionally, more states than ever before are debating cannabis law reform, including California and Massachusetts where legalization legislation have been introduced.

Since 1965, over 20 million Americans have been arrested on cannabis-related charges—90% for possession-only; over 900,000 cannabis arrests are expected again this year.

According to numerous survey and polls, approximately 75% of Americans support medical access to cannabis; 73% favor decriminalizing cannabis possession for adults and 42% of Americans support legalizing cannabis.

7,700 NORML Foundation ads are appearing on cable outlets nationwide (with a strong media buy in Ohio) on CNN, CNBC, Fox News Channel, Fuse, FX Networks, G4, MSNBC, CNN’s Headline News and Spike TV.