Attorney General Eric Holder's call for "sweeping" changes to the way the Justice Department handles drug offenses Monday drew praise from lawmakers and civil rights activists.
But not all advocates were satisfied.
"How dare the attorney general come to San Francisco and talk about drug policy and completely fail to address medical cannabis," Steve DeAngelo, proprietor of what's been billed as "the world's largest pot shop," told The Huffington Post. "Of all the reforms that should be made, certainly the first should be to get medicine into the hands of people who are suffering."
Holder, who delivered his speech before the American Bar Association's annual meeting in San Francisco, decried America's "broken system" and outlined reforms, including the abolishment of harsh mandatory minimum sentences for defendants convicted of drug-related crimes without ties to violence, gangs or trafficking enterprises. His remarks, however, sidestepped any mention of marijuana -- medical or otherwise.
"The attorney general missed an opportunity to address the single most pressing drug reform issue in the country," DeAngelo said, "and that's reforming our cannabis laws."
California made history in 1996 when voters passed Proposition 215, making it the first state to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes. Since then, 19 other states and the District of Columbia have followed, and California's own industry has ballooned into one that generates upwards of $100 million in annual tax revenue.
And yet marijuana remains illegal under federal law. Despite early promises to leave pot legislation and regulation to individual states, President Barack Obama's Justice Department began aggressively cracking down on California's cannabis operations in late 2011. Since then, hundreds of businesses have been forced to close and thousands of jobs have been lost.
DeAngelo's own Harborside Health Center, with locations in Oakland and San Jose, has been battling an aggressive campaign by U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag to shutter his business on the grounds that it has simply grown too large. The city of Oakland has fought on Harborside's behalf, and DeAngelo has vowed to keep his emporium open as the federal case against his business winds through the court system.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration has yet to publicly articulate its stance on marijuana in Washington state and Colorado, where voters approved initiatives that permit recreational adult use of the plant last November. In March, Holder claimed federal response to the laws was "coming soon." In June, with no further guidance from Holder's office, federal officials raided more than a dozen Seattle-area pot shops.
"Given that the entire country has been waiting for the administration to clarify their position on Colorado and Washington, I think the attorney general's comments this morning were just a side-stepping of the central issue," DeAngelo said.
Other marijuana reformers said they viewed Holder's latest announcement as a sign that the administration is moving in the right direction, even though Monday's speech doesn't go far enough.
"If the administration is serious about using law enforcement resources in a smarter way, it should be a no-brainer to strongly direct federal prosecutors to respect the majority of voters by allowing these groundbreaking state laws to be implemented without interference," Marijuana Majority's Tom Angell said in a statement. "Clearly, drug policy reformers have a lot of work ahead of us ... but today's remarks give us a lot to work with."
Before You Go
“I think that most small amounts of marijuana have been decriminalized in some places, and should be," he said back in 2000 in an interview with Rolling Stone. "We really need a re-examination of our entire policy on imprisonment.”
He's since spoken about the issue of marijuana and drug prohibition a number of times. Last year, he appeared in the documentary, "Breaking the Taboo," where he argued that the war on drugs has been a failure.
“I don't want to promote that but I also don't want to put people in jail who make a mistake," Paul said. "There are a lot of young people who do this and then later on in their twenties they grow up and get married and they quit doing things like this. I don't want to put them in jail and ruin their lives."
"I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol," Robertson said in an interview with The New York Times in 2012. "I've never used marijuana and I don't intend to, but it's just one of those things that I think: this war on drugs just hasn't succeeded."
Robertson has made similar remarks on his "700 Club" show before, but the Times, like many others, perhaps felt they must have misheard him.
“[T]o me, marijuana is no different than wine," he said in an interview with High Times. "It's a drug of choice. It's meant to alter your current state -- and that's not a bad thing. It's ridiculous that marijuana is still illegal. We're still fighting for it ... It comes down to individual decision-making. There are millions of people who smoke pot on a social basis and don't become criminals. So stop with that argument -- it doesn't work.”
[H/T Marijuana Majority]
From his campaign platform:
"By managing marijuana like alcohol and tobacco - regulating, taxing and enforcing its lawful use - America will be better off. The billions saved on marijuana interdiction, along with the billions captured as legal revenue, can be redirected against the individuals committing real crimes against society."
“Marijuana should not only be legal, I think it should be a cottage industry," he said in an interview with High Times. "My wife says, and I agree with her, that what would be really great for Maine would be to legalize dope completely and set up dope stores the way that there are state-run liquor stores.”
[H/T Marijuana Majority]
While marijuana has been made legal for various uses in a number of states, the Obama administration continues to enforce federal laws across the nation. This has led to numerous raids of marijuana-based businesses, as well as prosecutions of growers and other people involved in pot.
"I think it's about time we legalize marijuana," he said. "We have to make a choice in this country. We either put people who are smoking marijuana behind bars or we legalize it, but this little game we're playing in the middle is not helping us, it is not helping Mexico and it is causing massive violence on our southern border."
"Decriminalization does not result in increased drug use. Portugal's 10 year experiment shows clearly that enough is enough. It is time to end the war on drugs worldwide. We must stop criminalising drug users. Health and treatment should be offered to drug users - not prison. Bad drugs policies affect literally hundreds of thousands of individuals and communities across the world. We need to provide medical help to those that have problematic use - not criminal retribution."
"I don't tend to say this publicly, but we can see it's a curative thing. The narcotics industry is also enormous. It funds terrorism and - this is a huge problem in America - fuels the foreign gangs," he said. "More than 85 percent of men incarcerated in America are on drug-related offences. It costs $40,000 a year for every prisoner. If they were really serious about the economy there would be a sensible discussion about legalization."
While Obama and his administration have responded to state marijuana reforms by saying they must enforce federal laws against marijuana, the president has the power to reschedule the drug, which would allow federal authorities to shift resources away from a prohibitive approach.
"However, I think we need to prioritize our law enforcement efforts," Palin said. "If somebody's gonna smoke a joint in their house and not do anybody any harm, then perhaps there are other things our cops should be looking at to engage in and try to clean up some of the other problems we have in society."While Obama has spoken repeatedly about not being interested in prosecuting small-time marijuana users, he hasn't done anything to prevent them from being busted by law enforcement in states where the drug is still illegal.
In 2012, the former president said he was fine with state legalization efforts, though he himself doesn't necessary support legalizing the drug.
“As president 35 years ago I called for decriminalizing -- but not legalizing -- the possession of marijuana,” Carter said. “Since then, U.S. drug policies have been very horrible to our own country because of an explosion in prison populations.”
"I don't have a problem with states experimenting with this sort of thing I think that's the role of states," Cuccinelli said, according to Ryan Nobles of WWBT.
“The proof will be in the policy. The war on drugs has gotten a really bad rap, when you ask people if they support the war on drugs they say no ... [Obama's] budget once again has the same old drug warrior policy ... I reject the assumption that everybody who is using drugs needs treatment or is an addict and needs to get arrested ... Not all drug use is abuse.”
He's kept up the fight for drug policy reform since.
[H/T Marijuana Majority]
“We've been fighting the war on drugs since the '60s. And guess what? Trillions of dollars later, we are losing," Sharpton said during a segment on MSNBC. "When you look at the disparities in sentencing drug offenders, hasn't this kind of injustice undermined the legitimacy of our criminal justice system?”
[H/T Marijuana Majority]
Tancredo continued, “The arguments against marijuana today are the same as the arguments against liquor years ago.”
Years later, the former congressman agreed to smoke pot on camera with a documentary filmmaker, a deal that he later backed out of.
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