What is the general feeling on how the Obama Administration will react to WA and CO legalizing pot?

[Logical]

Continue to crack down hard?

Crack down harder?

The Colorado attorney general has asked Holder for feedback on the law. Crickets.

I bet the feds will change nothing.

Obama never takes the question of legalizing pot seriously and actually makes jokes about it.

It is not funny people in this country are in prison for simple possession of a weed that is safer than alcohol.

And for the record, I have never used pot.

[AndyTiedye]

1. They'll Double Down

They regard our protests, and even our VOTES on this issue, merely as evidence of the depth of "the problem".

Big Pharm wants the whole medical pot thing to go away, and the government is more than willing to help.

[Logical]

2. Tend to agree. n-t

[Fumesucker]

3. There's a good chance they won't use nukes

Beyond that I'm not willing to speculate.

[Logical]

6. Good one! :-)

[bluedigger]

10. They have always preferred chemical warfare for this particular fight.

Remember paraquat?

[Dubster]

4. Spam deleted by gkhouston (MIR Team)

[Le Taz Hot]

5. I'm hoping like hell

this administration gets the message and eases off. Challenges to the scheduling are currently making their way through the courts as we speak.

[Live and Learn]

7. Obama will ignore it. Holder will be ticked off at the brash attempts

to limit his power and will make threats but the GOP will keep him too busy protecting his own hide to be able to do much about it.

[immoderate]

8. Casual users and growers are not subject to arrest by the feds.

I'm hoping this will make a difference in enforcement, which before now was aimed at dispensaries.

---imm

[bluedigger]

9. I think they will be mostly passive.

They will concentrate law enforcement efforts on preventing interstate commerce of marijuana and leave intrastate activity largely alone. They don't really have the resources to aggressively pursue users, retailers, and growers on any scale likely to effectively discourage it. They could try to coerce the states by withholding Federal funding, like they did with transportation funding and speed limits and drinking ages, but I don't think they have any real leverage, as those were determined by legislative bodies rather than plebiscites. Long term, I think the Administration wishes for the States to lead on this issue, and force change at the national level.

[AndyTiedye]

12. They Find the Resources to Shut Down Dispensaries and Bust Growers in California

They'll find even more for the states that have actually legalized it.

They could try to coerce the states by withholding Federal funding, like they did with transportation funding and speed limits and drinking ages,

I expect they will.

Long term, I think the Administration wishes for the States to lead on this issue, and force change at the national level.

No, they expect to force their will on the states. They do not want this to change at any level, ever.

[bluedigger]

15. I guess I'm not quite as jaded as you seem to be.

(I rarely get to say that. )

As far as resources go, their aggressive war on mmj in California is a good example of why they can't expand beyond it. With the exception of sporadic and isolated prosecutions in other jurisdictions, their efforts have mostly ignored the many other states that have approved mmj. Further legalization reforms will result in ten fold of potential targets when pot is available at retailers other than dispensaries, not to mention users, suppliers, homegrowers, etc. They simply don't have enough field agents, prosecutors, judges, courts, detention centers, and prisons. Even with privatization, they are dependent on the states to lead in enforcement and punishment. It would be one big game of whack-a-mole and they would (will) lose. California has so far served as an example to discourage legalization, and it has been a failure overall.

As for national drug policy goals, there are certainly powerful institutional forces at work to fight this, I agree. I don't see any overt support from the President, but that is expected. He would have been a one termer, for sure, as the first black President that was pro-pot. That's just political reality, and why I think that the states and the people must and will lead.

[HopeHoops]

11. At this point, I'd like to see Obama get off AF-1 in WA or CO smoking a joint.

I doubt it would happen, but it would be cool.

[cherokeeprogressive]

13. Same old, same old. n/t

[easychoice]

14. Gil Kerlikowske drug czar,nazi & total creep

On May 13, 2009, Kerlikowske signaled that the Obama Administration would no longer use the term "War on Drugs", as it is counter-productive. The Obama Administration would instead demonstrate a favoring of treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce drug use.[17]

In a May 22, 2009 interview on KUOW radio, he said any drug 'legalization' would be "waving the white flag" and that "legalization is off the charts when it comes to discussion, from my viewpoint" and that "legalization vocabulary doesn't exist for me and it was made clear that it doesn't exist in President Obama's vocabulary." Specifically about marijuana, he said, "It's a dangerous drug" and about the medical use of marijuana, he said, "we will wait for evidence on whether smoked marijuana has any medicinal benefits – those aren't in."[18]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Kerlikowske