Orange County Register

Throughout his campaign, when questioned on the subject, President Obama  promised that when he was president he would end the policy of the DEA raiding patients and providers in states that had passed medical marijuana laws. But last Thursday, two days after Obama was inaugurated, DEA agents raided Holistic Solutions, a South Lake Tahoe medical marijuana collective operating legitimately under state law. The DEA also raided two medical grow houses in Colorado the same day.

To be sure, Obama hasn’t yet appointed a “drug czar” or a head of the DEA yet, so the DEA is still inhabited by unreconstructed Bushies who think their sacred war on a plant trumps federalism and their job is to subvert legitimately passed state laws. But his choice of Eric Holder, who in 1996 as U.S. Attorney for DC pushed for making marijuana possession a felony with a five-year (!) mandatory-mimimum sentence for “intent to distribute” (no need to prove actual distribution) to be attorney general is deeply troubling. I talked to people at the Marijuana Policy Project, who remain hopeful that Obama will at least keep this promise, but they said nobody had even brought the issue up during his confirmation hearing. Of course there were other, sexier issues with which to bludgeon Holder. But he will almost certainly be confirmed this week. Has he matured since 1996? Nobody knows or seems interested.

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