President Obama campaigned on a promise to end Justice Department interference in medical marijuana programs that have been enacted in some states. Yesterday (February 26, 2009) Attorney General Eric Holder announced “What he [the President] said during the campaign is now American policy.”
Holder is halting the Bush-era policy of federal enforcement of marijuana laws on medicinal pot dispensaries in in the 13 states where voters have approved doctor-prescribed marijuana use — Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
Representatives of the Drug Policy Alliance and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) have expressed their approval of the Attorney General’s policy statement. The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) is cautiously optimistic, pointing out that the DEA has conducted raids in California since Obama took office five weeks ago.
The Libertarian Party of Georgia platform does not address the issue of medical marijuana. Rather, the party platform is concerned with the way “…the so-called “War on Drugs” is more accurately described as a war on freedom and the U.S. Constitution. It has provided a rationale by which the power of the state has been expanded to restrict greatly our 4th Amendment right to privacy, and poses an especially grave threat to individual liberty and to domestic order.”
Our platform goes on to “..call for the repeal of all laws establishing criminal or civil penalties for the manufacture, use, or sale of drugs.” We do not recommend the use of drugs, but we demand that people have the freedom to live their lives as they wish.
The Libertarian Party of Georgia has many serious policy differences with the new Obama administration and with Attorney General Holder. But we give credit where credit is due: we praise the administration for allowing sick people to use whatever medication their physician prescribes.
