Reply #27: Here's your answer, from a cold political perspective: [View All]

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Democrats should overturn DEA policy for medical marijuana:

http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=3392

They should legalize industrial hemp, though polls on that are less numerous.

Whether Democratic congresspeople do so is entirely a matter of how much they are influenced by big pharma and any other special interests with an anti-cannabis/anti-hemp stake. They should at the very least survey for a veto-proof majority on these two issues. If they decide to try to wait for a friendly presidential administration, they should not just do so because they assume it will be necessary. The votes may already be there, since there's a surprising level of support for these two issues among conservatives.

They should wait on federal drug legalization/decrim:

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/410/gallup.shtml

But in the meantime certain states should decriminalize, which despite all the moaning and groaning about conflicts with the feds, has been done for other issues -- the law just says that the state's police won't spend resources on arrests and the courts won't prosecute. In a way that's harsher because offenders end up in the federal system, but the feds really aren't equipped to go it alone and will not be for several years, so the total number of cases would moist definitely drop, and the states that do so will enjoy quite the relief on their court budgets/dockets.