The green elephant in the room.
For those of you who haven’t seen it, the Obama administration has set up a place on the official White House website for people to sign petitions and supposedly get their concerns addressed by the administration. Any petition that receives enough signatures is supposed to go before a committee to see about putting the will of the people into action.
I spent the other day digging through all of the open petitions on the White House petition list. Out of all of the open petitions on the site, the Legalize And Regulate Marijuana In A Manner Similar To Alcohol petition has the most signatures. Right now it’s sitting at 62,000 signatures where most of the other successful petitions are at 5,000-10,000 signatures.
So what does it say when a marijuana legalization petition (located on the White House’s site) is the most publicly endorsed petition on the entire site? Well, it might not mean much considering it’s just a petition on the internet. But then there’s the matter of the recent Gallup poll that shows 50% of Americans are in favor of marijuana legalization while 46% are against it.
Here’s a handy chart from the poll that shows how attitudes toward legalization have been trending:
To put it all into perspective here’s one dandy of a news commentary on the whole issue:
Summary for Mango: Obama’s administration continues to hold marijuana as a class 1 drug, equating it with heroin. Meanwhile Obama and other presidents smoked pot in the past and many of our politicians in Washington gets high all the time on alcohol which is much more dangerous and harmful than marijuana.
So, do you think this will slow the DEA’s current war on medical marijuana dispensaries? Does anyone else remember Obama promising to leave dispensaries alone?
My guess is that big pharma has our government on the leash pending the release of their new patented Marinol derivatives. If the populace can medicate themselves, they won’t be forced to shovel money into the pockets of pharmaceutical companies.
Will the will of the people respected? I guess we’ll see what the White House does with this petition and if Obama ever decides to keep his promise regarding dispensaries.
In the meantime, us sick folks will continue to pay through the nose for poison.
Thanks for the link to the petitions. I did not know that existed and I know I’m going to be spending some time reading quite a few of them.
When I was a teenager we always thought that before we turned 50 the people would see the light on the subject of pot. Now, however, I think our government officials have all been living the lie for so long that they just don’t want to admit that they were wrong. It would bring up too many issues to correct and it’s just easier to keep going with the status quo.
Besides what would all those DEA agents have to do if pot were made legal? How could they continue to confiscate people’s property, possessions and money? How would the prisons keep their minimum security units necessary? As with everything else too many factions make too much money with potheads being criminals.
OH BLOODY HELL YESSSSSSSS..
.I’ll be back tonight to fully read your blog…..this is BRILLIANT info…I am so grateful you shared this Moosehammer….petition city here I come!
Archived image unavailable
I also was unaware of the petition site and i thank you for pointing it out. Bet if more folks knew… Will check it out? Do they allow the creation of new petitions as well? Because I would like Thursdays renamed “Little Bear’s Day” and the Glass?Spiegal act re-instituted.
We will see if they move to legalize now that public opinion has changed.
Awwww That green Elephant.
I thought you were talking about HydroElectric power.
When my mom had cancer, I tried so hard to get her to smoke pot to make her feel better and eat more but she was old school and would have no part of it. She would’ve died more peacefully had she followed my advice.
I’m perfectly fine with legalizing it, as long as there are limits much like alcohol…wouldn’t be any worse than a lot of the prescription drugs that people get legally.
Good blog and a lot of good points.
Good post 🙂