OBAMA GETS HAZY ON REEFER ECONOMICS

For all of the keen intellect that President Barack Obama showed in
his online town hall meeting, he didn't seem to know much about reefer
economics.

When asked whether legalizing marijuana might be a stimulus for the
economy and job creation, he played the question for laughs.

"I don't know what this says about the online audience . . .," he
quipped as his studio audience chuckled and groaned. "But . . . this
was a fairly popular question. We want to make sure that it was
answered," he said.

Sure. So you could knock it, I thought.

Obama's response: "The answer is, no, I don't think that is a good
strategy to grow our economy."

No stimulus? Hey, more than a few blinged-out, Escalade-driving pot
dealers would dispute that notion. You want a "green" industry? Free
the weed, dude.

Such is the call of pro-pot politicians like California Assemblyman
Tom Ammiano, who has proposed to legalize the weed, tax it and
regulate it like booze. He estimates the move would generate $1
billion in revenue for the state's troubled budget and save $150
million in enforcement costs.

It's hard to argue with Ammiano's logic, but it's easy to make light
of lighting up. Marijuana is, after all, funny. Few subjects inspire
more bad puns from headline writers than those that, well, step on
grass. A quick sample:

"Obama: Nope to dope." (Russia Today)

"Obama's marijuana buzz kill." (The Daily Beast online)

"Marijuana issue suddenly smoking hot." (Politico)

Like sex and sobriety, marijuana is funny because it is surrounded by
so much hypocrisy. So is politics.

To listen to Obama's chortles, for example, you'd never guess that he
is our third president in a row to have admitted to using marijuana
back in his years of youthful indiscretion.

Bill Clinton says he tried it but "didn't inhale." Oh, sure. George W.
Bush admitted to early pot use in a taped interview with a friend, but
refuses to discuss it in public. Obama described his own teen drug use
in poignant detail in his first memoir, but like countless other Baby
Boomer dads he now shies shyly away from the subject.

Yet, you would not guess from his snarky town-hall attitude that only
a week earlier his attorney general, Eric Holder, announced that the
federal Drug Enforcement Administration would stop raiding and
arresting users or dispensers of medicinal marijuana unless they
violated both state and federal laws.

That means you, California, and a dozen other states that permit
marijuana sales and possession for medicinal purposes with a doctor's
recommendation.

Holder sensibly announced that DEA resources are too valuable in the
war against dangerous drug lords to be raiding residents who otherwise
are in compliance with state and local laws and standards. That would
reverse the Bush administration's ridiculous scorched-earth pursuit
that ignored the right of states to govern themselves in such matters.

Yet, convenient inconsistency is not limited to any one party or
administration. A week after Holder's notice-and the same day that
Obama laughed off the notion of legal reefers-DEA agents raided
Emmalyn's California Cannabis Clinic, a licensed medical marijuana
collective in San Francisco.

DEA spokesmen claimed Emmalyn's had violated local as well as federal
law, but they didn't say how. Local officials said they didn't have a
clue what the DEA was talking about.

Not laughing is Charles Lynch, a celebrated cause since his Morro Bay,
Calif., medical marijuana dispensary was raided by the DEA in 2007.
Two days before Obama's town hall meeting, a federal judge postponed
Lynch's sentencing to await clarification of Team Obama's new
hands-off approach.

Lynch, who has no criminal record and was welcomed by the local mayor
and business community, should be set free. Instead he's in legal
limbo, with both sides trying to make him a test case for their
competing crusades.

Also not laughing are lawmakers in at least 10 states, including
Illinois, who currently are debating whether and how they might join
the 13 states where medical marijuana is legal.

If he really cares, Obama could end this reefer madness in much the
same way that President Franklin Roosevelt ended the disastrous run of
liquor prohibition in 1933. Prohibition had to go. It was too costly
to enforce. It demoralized a public already beaten down by the
Depression. It wasted a potential tax revenue-producing commodity by
intruding unnecessarily into the private lives of otherwise
law-abiding Americans. Sounds familiar.

Unlike Roosevelt, Obama does not have to amend the Constitution to end
our marijuana confusion. He only has to get out of the way and allow
the states to enforce their own drug laws. That's not a laughable
notion. It's only sensible.

Clarence Page is a member of the Tribune's editorial board and blogs
at chicagotribune.com/pagespage