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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObama's War on Marijuana Rolls on in 'Oaksterdam' Raid
On Monday, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and the Internal Revenue Service raided the campus of Oaksterdam University, a trade school of sorts—some call it the “Princeton of Pot”—in Oakland, Calif., that instructs students on the finer points of growing, harvesting, and selling pot. Oaksterdam was established in 2007 after the state legalized medical marijuana; it later expanded to Los Angeles and Michigan. The federal raid was the latest in a series of actions by the Justice Department to crack down on the “legal” marijuana business that’s permitted by such states as California, yet violates federal law.
I briefly attended Oaksterdam University a few years ago for this article in the The Atlantic about the growing business of medical marijuana—or “cannabusiness,” as its proprietors like to say. Although media coverage of the campus tends to indulge all the usual stoner stereotypes, Oaksterdam is at heart a business school. Somewhat to my surprise, most of my classmates were not dreadlocked trustafarians or Jeff Spicoli types, but earnest, clean-cut, night-school sorts who wouldn’t have looked a bit out of place managing an Applebee’s (DIN) franchise—a gauge of how promising the business of marijuana once looked.
At the time of my visit in the fall of 2008, California’s marijuana “community” was rapturously behind Barack Obama. Wandering through Venice’s various pot dispensaries with a local dealer (I was doing reporting!), I saw the famous Shepard Fairey “Hope” posters plastered just about everywhere, and I talked with some of the more committed activists who believed that Obama would legalize marijuana if he became president. That idea struck me as fantasy. But there was no denying that the medical marijuana movement appeared to have become a legitimate force in politics. With social mores loosening and budget deficits skyrocketing—marijuana dispensaries presented a welcome source of new tax revenue—California’s 2010 ballot initiative legalizing marijuana outright appeared to have a chance of passing.
Ultimately, it failed. And things have been pretty much downhill for its supporters ever since. Although U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder initially indicated that prosecuting dispensaries would not be a priority, so long as they followed state and local laws, the Justice Department has aggressively gone after them. Last fall, four U.S. attorneys based in California gathered in Sacramento to announce that they would begin cracking down in earnest on these businesses, which would include going after their landlords. Raiding Oaksterdam is a part of this effort. It’s a further reminder that no group of supporters is more disappointed in—and alienated by—Obama’s presidency.
Link - http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-03/obamas-war-on-marijuana-rolls-on-with-raid-of-oaksterdam
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Obama's stance on marijuana might cost him the election. It's a big issue for a lot of libertarian-leaning swing voters. While Romney did come out against legalizing even medical marijuana, that was back in 2007 - and we all know how readily Romney changes his positions to pander.
Much of Ron Paul's support came from his stance on cannabis. With him essentially out, these (often younger) voters are being turned away by Obama at just the time they are starting to compare him to Romney.
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msongs
(67,361 posts)
BlueMTexpat
(15,365 posts)
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Throw those cancer-ridden grannies in prison! SPARE NO EXPENSE!$$!!!$$$!!!
I feel safer, already. 
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)He just wants to save us from ruining our lives the way he ruined his own with drugs. Obama knows he could have gone much, much further in life if he had been busted and gotten proper treatment for his own drug abuse.
exxorcist
(1 post)i honestly hope you're not serious with that post, because if it's serious then you could very well be the most narrow minded simpleton I've ever seen on the internet (and that's saying a lot). You think Obama is trying to protect us from Cannabis and that he could have gone further in life if he didn't smoke? LOL he's the president wtf how can he go further in life?People like you think they need the government to take care of you because you're incapable of taking care of yourself? wow dude i actually feel sorry for you. But if your just trolling then i say bravo. Bravo!
Snake Alchemist
(3,318 posts)
Norrin Radd
(4,959 posts)
malcolmkyle
(39 posts)Due to Prohibition (historically proven to be an utter failure at every level), the availability of most of these mood-altering drugs has become so universal and unfettered that in any city of the civilized world, any one of us would be able to procure practically any drug we wish within an hour.
* Throughout history, the prohibition of any mind-altering substance has always exploded usage rates, overcrowded jails, fueled organized crime, created rampant corruption of law-enforcement - even whole governments, while inducing an incalculable amount of suffering and death.
* Apart from the fact that the DEA is the de facto enforcement wing of the pharmaceutical industry, the involvement of the CIA in running Heroin from Vietnam, Southeast Asia and Afghanistan, and Cocaine from Central America has been well documented by the 1989 Kerry Committee report, academic researchers Alfred McCoy and Peter Dale Scott, and the late journalist Gary Webb.
* It's not even possible to keep drugs out of prisons, but prohibitionists wish to waste trillions of dollars in an utterly futile attempt to keep them off our streets.
* The United States jails a larger percentage of it's own citizens than any other country in the world, including those run by the worst totalitarian regimes, yet it has far higher use/addiction rates than most other countries.
* Prohibition is the "Goose that laid the golden egg" and the lifeblood of terrorists as well as drug cartels. Both the Taliban and the terrorists of al Qaeda derive their main income from the prohibition-inflated value of the opium poppy. An estimated 44 % of the heroin produced in Afghanistan, with an estimated annual destination value of US $ 27 Billion, transits through Pakistan. Prohibition has essentially destroyed Pakistan's legal economy and social fabric. We may be about to witness the planet's first civil war in a nation with nuclear capabilities. - Kindly Google 'A GLOBAL OVERVIEW OF NARCOTICS-FUNDED TERRORIST GROUPS' Only those opposed or willing to ignore these facts want things the way they are.
* The future depends on whether or not enough of us are willing to take a long look at the tragic results of prohibition. If we continue to skirt the primary issue while refusing to address the root problem then we can expect no other result than a worsening of the current dire situation. - Good intentions, wishful thinking and pseudoscience are no match for the immutable realities of human nature.
nebenaube
(3,496 posts)"Obama's stance on marijuana might cost him the election." <- major understatement.