A guy who lobbied for the Marijuana Policy Projected talked about meeting with legislators and, to a person, they assumed support for legalization (or decriminalization) was lower than it is (and was.) They had the numbers exactly backward, in fact, and assumed it was a "fringe" issue because the whole subject has been framed as Cheech and Chong vs. sobriety.
This was on both sides of the aisle. Repeatedly.
I don't know why you think this has had anything to do with keeping Democrats out of office since no federal-level Democrat since Jimmy Carter, until recently, was willing to even address the issue. To me, it has looked like the beltway is simply out of touch.
When you say "it" hasn't been about corporate interests, how do you square that with the massive amts. of funding that go to military contractors that is unaccounted for? Funding for the WoD is a cash cow - and yet there is no demonstrable effect for spending trillions of dollars.
Biden started the office of the drug czar, so it's not exactly like any northeastern democrat has shown any leadership on this issue, other than Frank, with the sort of "throw it against the wall" sorts of legislation that couldn't get out of committee. No one has really challenged Republicans on this - or sought to exploit the divisions within Republican voters that exist with libertarians v. social conservatives.
And how does the stunning increase in incarceration, that is tied directly to the rise of the war on drugs and various sentencing laws, square with the idea this isn't about corporate interests? How are law enforcement orgs., who get federal funding for their state orgs, not part of the corporate interest problem?
How does the fact that the alcoholic bev, industry lobby insisted on helping to fund WoD propaganda - as long as they weren't included - not indicate corporate influence on drug policy?
No doubt CA is important. The population of CA is greater than the entire northeastern region, including NY, but CA has had more liberal mj laws for nearly 20 years with mmj legislation, and now with decriminalization, it's far, far ahead of any federal level suggestion or implementation.
Alaska will probably be the next state to legalize - since they, too have had far more liberal law regarding mj than anything considered in DC for years, too.
I'm sure pols in DC are familiar with the polls - as far as they care to know. They have demonstrated, however, that they don't dare to challenge bureaucracies that exist to perpetuate the drug war. Which, again, leads me to the cui bono question, and the answer is the pigs at the trough in federal agencies, contractors - these are the beneficiaries of this continued failed policy.
And it's stunning, really, that Obama laughed off this issue, to me, because it's so easy to make the argument for decriminalization for mmj - this is an issue of compassion and everyone has a family member who has dealt with cancer, etc. People were really hoping that Obama would be rational about this issue because he's also obviously not some foaming at the mouth opportunist like Gingrich, etc.
But when you hear the drug czar's office, the NIDA, the DEA, and so on, making pronouncements that are obviously false - it's pretty hard to believe this is about right vs. left since no one beyond Cohen or Polis challenges these lies.
But you think this comes down to Democrats being afraid to lead because they're afraid a Republican might say something bad about them? This, again, strikes me as such a weird understanding of this issue when such a large majority, for so many years, has demonstrated overwhelming support for rescheduling (i.e. medical use.)
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