OBAMA HAS THE CHANCE TO BE ANOTHER FDR

He Can End the Prohibition Era on Marijuana

As FDR Did in 1933, Obama Must Now Help End an Utterly Failed,
Socially Destructive, Reactionary Crusade Against Marijuana.

The parallels between the 1933 coming of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the
upcoming inauguration of Barack Obama must include the issue of
Prohibition: alcohol in 1933, and marijuana today. As FDR did back then,
Obama must now help end an utterly failed, socially destructive,
reactionary crusade.

Marijuana prohibition is a core cause of many of the nation's economic
problems. It costs the United States tens of billions per year to
track, arrest, try, defend and imprison marijuana consumers, who pose
little, if any, harm to society. The social toll soars even higher
when we account for social violence, lost work, ruined careers and
damaged families. In 2007, 775,137 people were arrested in the United
States for mere possession of this ancient crop, according to the
FBI's uniform crime report.

Like the Prohibition on alcohol that plagued the nation from 1920 to
1933, marijuana prohibition (which essentially began in 1937) feeds
organized crime and a socially useless prison-industrial complex that
includes judges, lawyers, police, guards, prison contractors and more.

A dozen states have passed public referenda confirming medical uses
for marijuana based on voluminous research dating 5,000 years.
Confirmed medicinal uses for marijuana include treatment for glaucoma,
hypertension, arthritis, pain relief, nausea relief, reducing muscle
spasticity from spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis, and
diminishing tremors in multiple sclerosis patients. Medical reports
also prove smoked marijuana provides relief from migraine headaches,
depression, seizures and insomnia, according to NORML. In recent
years, its use has become critical to thousands of cancer and AIDS
sufferers who need to it to maintain their appetite while undergoing
chemotherapy.

The ban on marijuana include hemps, one of the most widely used
agricultural products in human history. Unlike many other industrial
crops, hemp is powerful and prolific in a natural state, requiring no
pesticides, herbicides, extraordinary fertilizing or inappropriate
irrigation. Its core products include paper, cloth, sails, rope,
cosmetics, fuel, supplements and food. Its seeds are a potentially
significant source of biodiesel fuel, and its leaves and stems an
obvious choice for cellulosic ethanol, both critically important for a
conversion to a Solartopian renewable energy supply.

Hemp was grown in large quantities by George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson, James Madison and many more of the nation's founders, most
of whom would likely be dumbfounded to hear it is illegal (based on
entries in Washington's agricultural diaries, referring to the
separation of male and female plants, it's likely he and his cohorts
also raised an earlier form of "medicinal" marijuana).

Hemp growing was mandatory in some circumstances in early America, and
again during World War II, when virtually the entire state of Kansas
was planted in it. The current ban on industrial hemp costs the U.S.
billions of dollars in lost production and revenue from a plant that
can produce superior paper, clothing, fuel and other critical
materials at a fraction the financial cost and environmental damage
imposed by less-worthy sources.

On Jan. 16, 1919, fundamentalist crusaders help pass the 18th
Amendment, making the sale of alcohol illegal. The ensuing Prohibition
was by all accounts a ludicrous failure, epitomized by gang violence
and lethal "amateur" product that added to the death toll. Its only
real winner was organized crime and the prison-industrial complex.

In 1933, FDR helped pass the 21st Amendment repealing Prohibition,
which ended a costly era of gratuitous social repression and gave the
American economy -- and psyche -- a tangible boost.

Marijuana prohibition was escalated with Richard Nixon's 1970
declaration of the War on Drugs. There was a brief reprieve when Steve
Ford, the son of President Gerald Ford appeared on the cover of
Rolling Stone barefoot and claiming that the best place to smoke pot
was in the White House. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter's last year in
office, 338,664 were arrested for marijuana possession.

President Ronald Reagan renewed the War on Drugs and declared his
"Zero Tolerance" policy, despite his daughter Patti Davis' claim that
the Gipper smoked weed with a major donor. Following Reagan, President
George Herbert Walker Bush recorded a low of 260,390
marijuana-possession arrests, but the numbers climbed again under
Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, both of whom are reported
to have smoked it themselves (though Clinton claims not to have inhaled).

On a percentage basis, at least as many American high school students
smoke pot than students in Holland, where it is legal. In the midst of
the drug war, U.S. students report virtually unlimited access to a
wide range of allegedly controlled substances, including pot. Because
so many Americans use it, and it is so readily available, the war on
marijuana can only be seen as a virtually universal assault on the
basic liberties of our citizenry.

In a 2005 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services survey, more
than 97 million Americans admitted to having tried marijuana at least
once. President-elect Obama makes it clear in his book Dreams From My
Father that he has smoked -- and inhaled -- marijuana (he is
apparently addicted to a far more dangerous drug, tobacco). His
administration should tax marijuana rather than trying to repress it.
Like alcohol and tobacco, a minimum age for legal access should be set
at 21.

As a whole, the violent, repressive War on Drugs has been 40 years of
legal, cultural and economic catastrophe. Like FDR, Obama must end our
modern-day Prohibition, and with it the health-killing crusade against
this ancient, powerful medicinal herb.