Obama's finally got the USG to stop prosecuting where medical marijuana is legal. Needless to say, this somewhat frustrating in the sense that it's like watching a blind man stumble in the right direction, rather than seeing some eagle-eyed person of principle end the drug bans.
I suppose I could be extra cynical and observe Obama has A: made any left coast pot heads happy enough to try extra hard to get out of bed on election day and B: kept the monstrous tools of coercion used to perpetuate the drug war for his own ignoble ends.
He's done similar fumbles in the right direction with Cuba. Not putting the missiles in Poland was probably a good thing, though I can't tell for sure. If, again, these behaviors were part of a larger and more principled set of steps on the path of non-intervention, I think it would go a long way towards improving our situation with Russia, while being understandable to Poland. Unfortunately, since we are still at war in various places, and insisting on various policies in other places, Russia is probably more suspicious than mollified, and the Poles are likely far more angry than they would be if they saw we were committed to a universal, rather than a selective policy.
Of course, there's an extra-cynical explanation in all this as well, and it's very sad that, ninety miles off the coast of the U.S. people are still in dire need of basic nutrition. End the embargo. Allow travel. The policies of the U.S. strengthen the Castros, largely by keeping the resistance hungry and weak, rather helping them get strong enough to overcome.
But I digress. I hope Obama&Co. remember to show how much money they saved by ending the anti-medical marijuana attacks. Well, we know they aren't actually going to save any money because they'll just throw it down the rat-hole along with everything else- but a nice large number sometimes gets my Republican friends thinking a bit more clearly about such things. Amazing what couching libertarian policy in terms of a reduction in tax can do.
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