Would Mitt Romney be Worse on Medical Marijuana than Obama?

[oscar169]

Last week, Scott Morgan at StoptheDrugWar.com made the argument that it may be premature to think that Mitt Romney would be worse
Last week, Scott Morgan at StoptheDrugWar.com made the argument that it may be premature to think that Mitt Romney would be worse than President Obama when it comes to marijuana policy. He accurately pointed out that Romney was not in favor of medical marijuana, but that he also hadn’t really explained his position clearly.
Romney certainly was not openly suggesting the kind of attacks perpetrated by the Obama administration over the last few years. To assume that he would be worse than Obama simply because he is a Republican, the party traditionally most opposed to marijuana policy reform, would be reactionary.
Well, Romney still has not clearly laid out his position, but he gave us all some hints in an interview published the following day. He only spoke about the issue under duress and berated the reporter for bringing it up, saying that marijuana policy reform was not a significant issue.
Here is the gist of what he said:

“I think marijuana should not be legal in this country. I believe it’s a gateway drug to other drug violations. The use of illegal drugs in this country is leading to terrible consequences in places like Mexico and actually in our own country,” said Mr. Romney. “I oppose legalization of marijuana. I oppose legalization of other kinds of drugs, but I can tell you that I have a plan to get this economy going.”​

What can we tell from this? Well, most obviously, Mitt Romney does not support making marijuana legal. He outright opposes it.
He is also woefully uninformed of the research showing that the gateway theory is junk science and that prohibition brings marijuana users in contact with harder drugs. In previous interviews, he has also stated that he does not think marijuana is medicine, despite the mountains of research to the contrary.
He does not understand that since marijuana has never killed a single user in recorded history, it must be our marijuana policies that are causing “terrible consequences” in Mexico
He does not understand that making marijuana legal could help get our economy going. In fact, if states were only free to develop their medical marijuana industries without federal interference, they could reap the economic benefits the way Colorado, which has more than 4,000 marijuana industry workers, has done.
That’s all pretty bad. But does it mean that President Romney would use federal resources to interfere with state medical marijuana laws?
Maybe not. In the same interview, Romney also says, “I’m not running on marriage and marijuana. Those are state issues.”
Dare we hope that Romney believes in states’ rights to such an extent that he would respect state medical marijuana laws, even though he feels so negatively about marijuana?
You be the judge. Just take a look at his other positions on states’ rights issues first.

 

[chirim2003]

i think that any of them will say whatever they have to just to skirt the issues at hand and get themselves into office. lets face it they all suck so what we need to do is pick the lesser of the evils so to speak. honestly the country is a busisness and it is failing as we all can see so why not try something different and by that i mean take a chance think ron paul, a donald trump type. they are successful and always will be. why is that? they know money makes the world go round and round as we all know. and they make the money. which brings another question, why dont we legalise to some extent either federally or on a state level and stop prosecuting and imprisoning people over a plant, save that money and tax it or find a way to use the revenue it generates for the good. who do you all feel would be best? dont base it on color, religion, or the false political beleifs you hear them all speak about. look at the person, do they look trust worthy, look at the past people and wake up the road this country on will get even worse if something is not done. breed seeds, plant the seeds allover and as marc emery once said "overgrow the government". take a stand and say no more.

 

[squiggly]

There is no question.

Absolutely yes.

A thousand million times yes.

 

[Darth Schwag]

I absolutely think that Romney would be harsh on Cannabis policy. I don't think Obama would be as harsh on us if he wasn't sucking up to cops and big pharma for campaign dollars.
I don't thing either candidate is suitable for our agenda.
I would also like to second the strategy mentioned by chirim - Breed seeds and plant them everywhere. The bigger the seeds and the thinner the shells on them the more birds will eat them and spread the good word.

 

[plant-lover68]

Obama is being tough on medical users to get re-elected. He does not give a damn about sick people and I really don't think Mitt Romney does either. Ron Paul has my vote, even if I have to write it in. We need a national campaign to let the people vote on this issue once and for all and get the two-faced, lying hypocrite politicians out of the loop. We need a personal liberty revolution all over the world. Ron Paul stands up for personal liberties and is due much respect.

I have been unable to smoke this entire year thanks to being tested monthly for drugs to continue getting my pain medications for spinal injury pain. This really adds insult to injury and I don't like being treated like a person of low moral value just because I got hurt years ago.

The only thing that would bring a swifter and more violent response than smoking or growing weed would be to consume some raw milk that was not pastuerized, thereby destroying all the good food value of said product. Don't get me started on Genetically modified foods, MSG and high fructose corn syrup. Farm bills and parity stink, too.

 

[outwest]

You people think the Obama raids were bad. If Romney's elected there wont be a single dispensary within the year.

outwest

 

[sanvanalona]

Just take a look at the facts. When and where has the Republican party been better for medical marijuana? If you need an example of what happens when Republicans address the issue of mmj I would like to offer up Montana. There are less than 5 dispensaries in the state, there were over 200 before the republicans took over the state legislature. To think that Romney would let mmj be a state issue and tell the fed gov. to back off is ludicrous.

 

[squiggly]

Obama is being tough on medical users to get re-elected. He does not give a damn about sick people and I really don't think Mitt Romney does either. Ron Paul has my vote, even if I have to write it in. We need a national campaign to let the people vote on this issue once and for all and get the two-faced, lying hypocrite politicians out of the loop. We need a personal liberty revolution all over the world. Ron Paul stands up for personal liberties and is due much respect.

I have been unable to smoke this entire year thanks to being tested monthly for drugs to continue getting my pain medications for spinal injury pain. This really adds insult to injury and I don't like being treated like a person of low moral value just because I got hurt years ago.

The only thing that would bring a swifter and more violent response than smoking or growing weed would be to consume some raw milk that was not pastuerized, thereby destroying all the good food value of said product. Don't get me started on Genetically modified foods, MSG and high fructose corn syrup. Farm bills and parity stink, too.

It's an absolute joke to go from Bush to Obama and discuss how the president is being tough on medical users.

He's been tough (if you can call it that--I don't) on dispensaries--not patients. Get your facts straight, honestly.

As a matter of literal, supportable, fact--the MMJ scene has absolutely exploded and ballooned under Obama in a way which would have not been possible under Bush. Of the few dispensaries which have been actually charged, my guess is most of them got involved in a sting where they sold MJ to a non-medical user. The Justice Dpt specifically said they were targeting this type of behavior.

I'll admit some of the warnings and decrees which have gone out have been just awful--but most of these are not unilaterally passed down from Obama. That's just not how it works. He's is the commander-in-chief of the military, not of America or the world. People really need to be setting their sights on congress. The president is really really not the biggest kahuna in America unless it concerns matters of war.

Could he have been a bigger advocate for MMJ, yes absolutely--and that is a shame. However this threads begs a question which boils down to: which is the lesser of two evils?

The answer is, resoundingly, Obama--and in fact any leftist government figure placed next to their counterpart rightist figure measures up about the same. The right created these policies. They are all about codifying family values into law. The left is essentially about stopping that in its tracks, and yes admittedly redistributing wealth from the high levels of society to the lower ones (though they've done an abysmal job of this because of the right's resistance to it).

While you may not agree about the latter thing (redistributing wealth) it is a categorical fact that you cannot have your cake and eat it too here. A vote for the right is a vote to keep MMJ either stringently controlled (possibly moved into a pharmacy--with narcotics level charges to be tendered against non-violent offenders), and definitely a vote to keep marijuana illegal in general.

A vote for the right is a vote for prohibitions--it always has been, it always will be. The right thinks they are right, and they want to prove it by making it illegal for anyone to do things they don't agree with. It's honestly one of the most transparent and abundantly clear things about the GOP and the right in general. I mean, you can try to deny it--but the list of prohibitions and censorships throughout history falls effortlessly at the right's feet (and not only in this country). To make a case for this would be like the simplest warm up you could ever assign to a debate team.

 

[plant-lover68]

I don't trust any of them myself. Remember Bill Clinton? It's a toss up to see who put more growers and smokers in jail between him and George Bush. I still plan to vote for Ron Paul and no politician from the left or right cares about anything but power. Ron Paul believes in not only civil liberties but the personal right to ingest anything you want to in your body as long as you do no harm to anyone else while doing so, such as DUI.
As far as redistributing wealth from people who work for it to people who don't, that dog won't hunt. I've been poor money wise all my life and I worked until I was injured and earned everything I have. But, that doesn't give me the right to take from someone who was more successful or more educated than I was. I always worked hard jobs for low pay, but I did the best I could with what I had and that's life. What's mine is mine and I might share it with someone, but nobody is going to take it from me without some grief. Some Democrats are for prohibition and some aren't and that goes for the Republicans, also. Obama wants to prohibit personal freedom and the first amendment just like the right. He just destroyed a marine's career for daring to criticize him. I don't think anyone is above reproach, and anybody serving his country should be able to voice an opinion without being attacked. I personally don't need the right or the left to define my family values. If they prohibit the consumption of raw milk at your own risk, what makes you think they care if you have access to dispensaries or medical cannabis. Nobody is completely independent of other people, we are all interdependent and we need each other. None of these politicians are Saints, but neither are they Satans. But, they do unite in one accord when they lust for power and power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

 

[Kahn Seanery]

You bet your sweet ass...
Rom is a corporate thug!

 

[Kahn Seanery]

If u studied what obamas said... over the last administration...
He never trusted us to distrubute our own meds.. and is all for the sick people who really need it..
But shys away from the debate... with a smirk or grin ...
honestly i think he knows its corrupted and mostly a bunch of recreational users....
And doesnt take it seriously...

Despite what happenend the last term ... Im happy with my safe access to meds still...

 

[GreenThumbBill]

They are both the same- slick on the surface, sleazy behind the scenes, professional corporate hacks. Their policy blows whichever way the wind goes.

 

[squiggly]

I think there's truth behind all these statements--but they aren't all necessarily representative of the total reality.

Yes they're both pretty wishy washy, but ultimately there is a different underlying ideology supporting both of them to which to do both pay homage. Obama is on the left and he acts like it, vice versa for Mitt.

While I think you will see them say anything to get elected, I think it'd be naive to expect that these ideologies won't play any role in their decisions about how to govern. I don't think they are solid boulders for specific cases, but they aren't exactly pebbles either as it goes to left and right policy respectively.

I've said it a million times. We have to take baby steps, things won't get better all-at-once. Voting is necessary to get there, the unfortunate question we have to answer is which is better not who we like. You don't have to like something for it to be better.

Eating worms is probably better than eating human shit, but still not particularly fun or good.

I stick behind Obama because I believe he's the best foot forward--not because i believe he is the best. More than anything I think he's better than Romney, but I also felt he was better than McCain/Palin (although not by so large a margin as I believe he is better than Romney/Anyone).

I think that feeling of mine has actually borne out some interesting things. It's not necessarily been change everyone can believe in, but I think it'd be short-sighted not to see that Obama's actually done a helluva lot different--and he's done it almost entirely without congress to boot.

I like this, because I (being an experimenter at heart) know that to make things better we have to test shit out, and fuck some things up first. For 20 years we'd been in this slump, this neverending back and forth but always in the middle war between the left and right.

What we had/have is this weird legislative monster that represents all of the most mediocre left policies mixed in with all the most mediocre right policies. Pretty much guaranteeing that neither system (left or right) which are in direct opposition with one another will work properly. A leftist system presupposes no interference from rightist legislation and vice versa. Neither will work unless they are actually implemented. As it stands now no one really knows which is better (from a financial standpoint) because we haven't tried either of them--although I'd argue the right has had a way better chance and they've fucked it up twice already (the great depression, the great recession).

For this reason I like the idea of shaking things up with something like Obamacare. Even if it falls flat on it's face it will force action and action is something we've been running low on in our political system for a few decades now. We've been getting these political bandaids for 20 years, and the time has come to realize that we don't need bandaids--we need reform.

And I do mean reform, as in reformation and reformulation from the bottom up. Obamacare has attempted to do that, and it may have done the wrong thing--but it's using the right process, and that is something I can get behind. We have to do stuff to change stuff, we can't just do more of the same and expect something different. Call the guy what you will, but I think he's delivered on his promise of being different. He's actually been wildly transparent by comparison (though not totally, of course) to other presidents, he's refused to take no for an answer from congress.

Just about the only thing he hasn't at least tried to do that I wish he would is cuss the fucking GOP out.

I digress.

We cannot compete in a world economy where China essentially makes unilateral decisions from the top down at a lightning fast pace--day to day type stuff. China is run like a big ass company.

We are run like a fuckin PTA meeting gone bad, where everyone is arguing about who's child is the most talented despite every study ever having been published saying that most of the children are probably equally talented. These people stare our country's decline in the face and they try to get their point across rather than do something.

This comes from both sides of the aisle and far be it from me to suggest otherwise--but I do like Obama because it's very obvious that he's trying to do it differently, even if he's inexorably drawn into the rank-and-file by our broken system of government.

If I've said it once I've said it a million times--congress is the key to the bullshit. They and only they have the power to turn it on it's head, only they can make the tough decisions which need made. Only they can decide to admit their imperfection, and their lack of omniscient understanding of the economy, and try testing some of their ideas rather than insisting they've already got it all figure out right here, but only if the other side signs off on this ideological issue which is totally unrelated.

Wake up, people. The president scarcely matters until congress is doing as it should. Let's follow the checks-and-balances in a row, not from the top down. Who fuckin' cares who has the veto power if there's no bills being sent to them?

 

[outwest]

A lesser of two evils is still evil.

outwest

 

[GreenThumbBill]

Obama is on the left and he acts like it

If giving in to the GOP at every negotiation is acting, "on the left" then Obama is pretty far to the left. Truth of the matter is that Obama's an honorary Republican. I'm not going to argue with you because your messages are never ending diatribes, but I will say anyone who thinks Obama's record is consistent with that of a liberal president is full of it or not paying attention. Obama's policies are just to the right of Nixon's!

That's why I don't think Obama would be much different from Romney.

 

[index]

He will be worse on MC then obama If mitt or obama win i'm moving out of the country.

 

[GreenThumbBill]

He will be worse on MC then obama If mitt or obama win i'm moving out of the country.

Later. Obama and Mittens are the only two possibilities, what is the 3rd option at this point?

 

[index]

Canada here I come. I thought paul was still in the mix

 

[GreenThumbBill]

Canada here I come. I thought paul was still in the mix

Unfortunately Ron Paul will never be the President of the USA: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/14/ron-paul-campaign-delegates_n_1515614.html

 

[kolah]

Is Ross Perot still alive? :rolleyes: