It is immensely disappointing that, yet again, the administration has declined the opportunity to discuss the very serious issue of ending marijuana prohibition in this country. For the ninth time, the White House has solicited the American people for direct input on the issues they cared about, and then, when the resulting answers called overwhelmingly for marijuana law reform, President Obama ignored the will of the American. Over half of the country now supports regulating and taxing marijuana; we can only hope that during the general election the issue is addressed with the respect and urgency it demands. (Alternet)

You can read more details here.

This seemed to be a logical opportunity to ask the administration about marijuana legalization. Last Tuesday, I posted NORML’s question to the White House YouTube page for consideration. We asked, “With over 850,000 Americans arrested in 2010, on marijuana charges alone, and tens of billions of tax dollars being spent locking up marijuana users, isn’t it time to regulate and tax marijuana?”

The reception was overwhelmingly positive, in just several hours the question received over 4,000 “thumbs up” votes and was one of, if not the, most popular question on the service. Then a peculiar thing happened, the question was removed. After becoming the most positively voted upon question in less than a day, the White House removed the question, deeming it “inappropriate.”

We informed our audience of the censorship and encouraged them to engage the White House on their own, using our question or a one of their own choosing. Over the next several days the program was inundated with marijuana law reform questions. At first, many met the same fate as our original question and were removed from the site. It seems our persistence ended up paying off and the page administrator finally gave up trying to censor the incoming questions and most marijuana inquiries have remained up since.

Voting closed last night at midnight and I made some rough calculations of the final results to see how we performed. Of the top 160 questions asked, marijuana reform questions accounted for 105 of them. Reposts of our question brought in an estimated 17,524 up-votes in addition to the 4,028 the original received before being removed. Combined, that is over 21,000 votes for one question, which is 5 times as many votes as any other question on the page. The 105 marijuana reform questions in the top 160 brought in over 74,000 votes, dwarfing any other topic. Our friends at LEAP posted a question as well and it ended as one of the top rated questions. You can read their coverage here.

Now, we wait. “Your Interview With the President” is scheduled to take place tomorrow, January 30th. Considering this is the same individual who previously stated that, “we need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws” and that legalization is a “perfectly legitimate topic for debate,” maybe he will take this opportunity to address the issue seriously for once. In an election year, this could go a long way towards winning back those who feel disenfranchised with the administration over a perceived lack of progress on the issue and amped up raids on medical programs in states such as California and Colorado.

The American people are ready for our debate Mr. President, are you?

“Pres. Obama, what is inappropriate about saving billions and not arresting nonviolent american citizens for marijuana? #WHChat @WhiteHouse”

– E. Altieri, Comm. Coordinator

As of 7pm Pacific, I checked the YouTube.com/WhiteHouse page to see how many votes our question received in President Obama’s latest YouTube Forum.  The good news?  Our question, “With over 850,000 Americans arrested in 2010, for marijuana charges alone, and tens of billions of tax dollars being spent locking up non-violent marijuana users, isn’t it time we regulate and tax marijuana?” received 4,023 votes, making it one of the most popular submissions to the forum.

The bad news?  See for yourself:

“The submission has been removed because people believe it is inappropriate.”  Hmm, well, who are these people?  The question got 241 “thumbs down” votes from viewers, was that it?  I notice that of the 615 questions submitted that asked about “With over 850,000 Americans arrested in 2010″ in the text, some still remain with 28 “thumbs down” and others are removed with as few as three, so it doesn’t seem like “people” refers to viewers or the public, does it?

Who are these people, President Obama?  They’re not the people out here who keep making marijuana legalization the number one topic of these online forums.  They’re not the millions whose lives are impacted by a marijuana arrest; the tokers and their families who lose jobs, houses, kids, freedom, assets, respect, security, and peace of mind because of marijuana prohibition.

Sadly, I think these people are actually just one person… a guy who smoked weed (and snorted coke) back in the day as a teenager in Hawaii and was damn lucky he didn’t get caught or today he’d be Barry the Drug Criminal.

In 2010, these were the Top 100 questions for President Obama, and they ALL dealt with marijuana legalization

(YouTube.com/WhiteHouse) On Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 9:00 p.m. ET, President Obama will speak to the nation in his annual State of the Union address.Starting today, you can ask President Obama the questions that are on your mind about the direction of the country and vote on others that you think should be asked. He’ll answer several of your top-voted questions during a special interview, which will take place on January 30, live from the White House. A selection of people who submit questions will also be invited to join a Google+ Hangout live with the President during the interview.

The deadline to submit is January 28 at midnight ET so submit your question now.

Here we go again.  How many times will President Obama ask the American people for their questions on national policy, how many times will we resoundingly call for marijuana legalization, and how will he diminish, mock, or ignore our concerns this time?

1. We petitioned him to legalize marijuana in September 2011, the number one petition;
2. We Twittered him to legalize marijuana in July 2011, making up one out of eight questions asked;
3. We asked him via YouTube video in January 2011, with LEAP’s question the number one video;
4. We asked him via Ideas for Change in March 2010, with legalization again the number one question;
5. We lobbied him via Citizen’s Briefing Book in May 2009, with the number one idea being legalization;
6. We asked him via Open for Questions II in March 2009, where he mocked the number one idea of legalization helping the economy;
7. We asked him via Open for Questions I in January 2009, where legalization topped most categories of questions;
8. We asked him via Change.gov in December 2008, where legalization was again number one and a dozen of the top fifty questions.

Maybe the ninth time is the charm?  Once again in this “ask the people” exercise the most popular questions deal with legalization of marijuana*.

Here’s the official National NORML question:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s my entry:

Click here to view the embedded video.

* Though this time, we may get beaten by SOPA, PIPA, and NDAA questions… which wouldn’t bother me a bit.  A free and open internet, threatened by SOPA and PIPA, is crucial to spreading the message of marijuana law reform.  NDAA is an abomination that allows the president to declare citizens “enemy combatants” and lock them up indefinitely without charge, without trial, and without rights.  We’re big fans of the First and Fourth Amendments here and these acts are counter to the spirit and Constitution of America.

NORML has submitted a question for consideration:

“As president, would you stand up for states’ rights by ending federal marijuana prohibition and allow them to experiment with models of decriminalization and legalization without federal interference?”

Here is how you can voice your support and promote this question:

Step 1: Go to Fox News’ Youtube page here.

Step 2: Click the “Vote” tab at the top of the page.

Step 3: In the topics box, select “Social Issues”

Step 4: Click “Video Questions.”

Step 5: You should see our video question towards the top of the list, look for the NORML logo in the thumbnail. Click the thumbs up icon next to the question.

The current line up of candidates have gone to great lengths to distance themselves from the current policies of President Obama, yet most have remained silent on the topic of marijuana law reform (that is, of course, excluding Ron Paul). Take a moment of your time to vote up our question, if these candidates want your vote, don’t you deserve to know where they stand on cannabis?

Why does music from British rock legends "The Who" keep playing in my head when I see this ad?

Remember when we were told that “legalization isn’t in the president’s vocabulary?”

Remember when Mr. Obama laughed off a suggestion that marijuana legalization could help the economy?

Remember when he emphatically stated he would not pursue a strategy of decriminalization of marijuana?

Yeah, we do, too.

So imagine our surprise at NORML to find an ad for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign nestled in the prime ad spot on our YouTube channel: NORMLtv (http://youtube.com/natlnorml).

What’s the campaign strategy for the marijuana smoker vote, Mr. Obama?  Keeping at the head of the DEA one of Mr. Bush’s administrators?  Maintaining the Bush-era policy of raiding medical marijuana providers?  Escalating numbers of marijuana arrests on your watch?

Or will it just be, “Look, you think I’m bad, imagine what happens if (fill in GOP nominee) wins!  I just want to force pot smokers into costly rehab they don’t need on the threat of prison.  (Fill in GOP nominee) wants to (fill in terrible threat we’re already experiencing now)!”

You want the absolute guaranteed votes of 90% of the 25 million American adults who use cannabis annually in America?

Convince Congress to pass and then you sign Barney Frank and Ron Paul’s Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act.

It doesn’t cost you anything.  Marijuana is still illegal in all fifty states and 99% of all marijuana arrests take place at the state and local level.  It just means marijuana is no longer a federal issue; states are free to set up any marijuana regulations they choose.  The people in marijuana friendly states will support you more and the ones who hate pot still think you’re a secret Muslim agent from Kenya anyway.

Well, I take that back.  Your contributors from Big Pharma might not like you endorsing the competition.

UPDATE:  Apparently, based on comments below, I should’ve explained how GoogleAdSense works. NORML didn’t “accept” advertising from the Obama campaign.  We offer up a piece of screen real estate to GoogleAdsense.  They sell advertising packages to third parties, like the Obama campaign, which promise to place their ads on websites matching certain demographics and content keywords.  So we don’t even know who or what is going to appear up there as an ad (within limits; obviously there isn’t going to be a phone sex ad or Klan rally promotion going up there… we can limit certain types of ad content.)

It’s possible that the ad algorithm just saw “within 50,000 on Alexa”, “large youth demo of readers”, and “Congress / House / Senate / Obama”  on our website and automatically placed Obama’s ad there because he wants to reach young politically active people on popular websites.  In fact, I seem to recall some “Marijuana: The Anti-Drug” ads showing up on our BlogTalkRadio page in the early days of NORML SHOW LIVE.  I’ve seen ONDCP ads show up on other pro-marijuana sites.

We’re not a 20th century newspaper; it’s not as if Obama’s campaign team called and said, “Hey, NORML, how about we support you by advertising and you support us by accepting the ad.  The day the ad appeared on NORMLtv was the first time we saw it there and probably just as shocking to the president.

In this episode, founder and legal counsel Keith Stroup recounts how he came to acquire some of NORML’s earliest funding from an unlikely source, Hugh Hefner and the Playboy Foundation.

Subscribe to NORMLtv and visit NORML’s Facebook page for announcements regarding future ‘NORML@40’ episodes. Also stay tuned to NORMLtv for periodic installments of ‘NORML Update’ and ‘Ask NORML.’

Get active; get NORML!

In the debut episode, NORML founder and legal counsel Keith Stroup speaks about NORML’s past and ongoing efforts to reschedule cannabis under federal law.

Subscribe to NORML TV and visit NORML’s Facebook page for announcements regarding future ‘Ask NORML’ episodes and how you can have your questions answered by NORML. Also stay tuned to NORML TV for periodic episodes of ‘NORML Update,’ which feature video highlights from NORML affiliated events around the nation.

Get active; get NORML!

Today he takes to the Net in response to the President’s artful dodge last week regarding the need to federal drug law reform. And he doesn’t mince words.

Yes, It Is Time For Pot Legalization, Mr. President
via Huffington Post

The Web is humming with stories and discussion from the aftermath of President Obama’s response to questions about drug legalization during last Thursday’s YouTube forum. While his words this time around are a bit more encouraging than previous signals from the administration, I would strongly suggest that we all, including the president, cut through the platitudes and get to the truth about marijuana prohibition.

If, as the president suggests, it is time for a “serious debate” about legalization, let’s get to it, starting with a few questions that beg for truth:

Why, with record federal deficits and states teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, are we spending billions on yet another failed Prohibition that is accomplishing nothing other than making criminals out of millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens and fueling drug cartels that threaten our fundamental national security? Is it not time to try something different?

Despite lip-service, about the need for treatment, harm-reduction and other strategies to address drug use as a health issue, why do the federal government’s actual policies and budget still treat the situation as almost entirely a law enforcement problem? Let’s end the unworkable marijuana prohibition and put our money where our mouth is. Let’s solve the problems like border crime. We can do it with pot legalization.

We need to deal with some simple truths. How do we reconcile the fact, that in a supposedly free society, it is legal for a responsible adult to purchase and consume alcohol, while purchasing and consuming marijuana is a crime? I, along with millions of other Americans, are still waiting for a credible answer to that one.

You can read the full text of Mr. Johnson’s remarks here.

$15.5 billion this year alone, 2/3rds for ineffective law enforcement.

President Obama responded to the most popular question (or, the eighty most popular questions) on YouTube.com’s “Ask Obama” forum regarding the debate on drug legalization in America.  Despite being the most popular question and gaining four times the support of any other non-drug war question, the YouTube moderator didn’t ask the question until #15.  The President’s response is a lot of platitudes about treatment, reducing demand, and reallocating resources, despite the Obama administration’s budget that puts twice the resources toward law enforcement than to treatment. At its core, however, it retains the premise that responsible adult marijuana consumers must be persuaded by our government, through drug tests, drug courts, forced rehab, and incarceration, into not consuming cannabis.

President Obama’s Drug War Answer

Mr. President, we’re never going to stop smoking marijuana. Never. American demand for cannabis is here to stay. You can let criminals control that market or you can do the sensible thing and begin regulating it.

Regardless of whether or not President Obama addresses the question of marijuana law reform in today’s live YouTube ‘Ask Obama’ Q&A, the American public has made their case to the mainstream media.

Last night, Universal Press Syndicate ran with the headline, Top Obama YouTube questions: Legalize pot. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

The top questions Americans want to ask U.S. President Barack Obama on YouTube Thursday deal with legalizing marijuana, a review of the questions indicated. … The YouTube questions Obama will answer will be based on the number of votes each question receives, YouTube said.

More than 193,000 people submitted nearly 140,000 questions and cast almost 1.4 million votes by midnight Wednesday, the submission deadline, a United Press International review indicated. This is 10 times last year’s 14,000 questions, the first year YouTube hosted an Obama interview.

The top 10 questions all involved ending or changing the government’s war on drugs, legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana and embracing industrial hemp as a “green” initiative to help farmers, the UPI review found.

As NORML’s Russ Belville blogged yesterday, marijuana’s popularity is not just limited the top 10 questions. In fact, the top 100 most popular questions (See them here.) posed to the President are about marijuana and drug law reform.

In the minds of the mainstream media, that is a statement just too big to ignore:

USA Today: Obama’s questions from YouTube deal mostly with legalizing pot

The Politico: Obama is urged to talk about drugs

Huffington Post: Obama Barraged By Pot Questions For Upcoming YouTube Town Hall

CBS News: Marijuana Dominates Questions for Obama’s YouTube Q&A

Washington Post: YouTube interviews President Obama

Regardless of how President Obama responds, the media has their story: The American public is ready to engage in a serious and objective political debate regarding the merits of legalizing the use of cannabis by adults. Is the President? Tune in here at 2:30 est today to find out.