The White House made a big deal out of its "virtual townhall" format yesterday, then President Obama laughed off the results.
The top four questions received under the heading of "financial security" concerned marijuana.
When the POTUS acknowledged this, he joked, “I don't know what that says about the online audience." That got a laugh from the real-space audience in front of him. Then he said, "The answer is no, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy."
Props to Freddie, the "ordinary gentleman," for calling the President out on this little moment of forced levity.
As for the underlying question: why should that not be a component of a decent recovery program? First, the decriminalization (or even the legalization) of marijuana will get people with entrepreneurial instincts and skills out of the prisons and back into our cities where such instincts and skills are needed. Second, it will be an immediate savings at both the federal and state level not having to spend so much money keeping people locked up. Third, the prevalence of black market sales is the cause of violent crime, which in turn places burdens upon our health care system every time the victims of those crimes are wheeled into an ER. Fourth, I don't know if the POTUS notices the movements of his Secretary of State, but she just travelled to Mexico to assure its leaders of assistance in resolving an upward spiral of well-armed violence there -- help that will hardly be costless, and help that is necessitated in part by bonehead prohibitionist policies. Those are four reasons to start why the better answer to such questions might have been a more serious one. I could come up with a longer list if I thought it would matter.
But forget all that. Assume the implications of POTUS' levity. Maybe all those questions were submitted by stoners who just want to be left alone. Is that so bad?
This was the point the "ordinary gentleman" was making. The desire to be left alone to smoke is a perfectly legitimate and principled stand. Not too long ago, that would have been thought of as a quintessentially American stand. It now appears to be the quintessential cyberspatial stand.
So ... listen to the web, Mr. President.
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Fifth, decriminalization or legalization will end the prohibition's destruction of the careers and future careers of people besides entrepreneurs. For example, if Barack Obama had been convicted for his youthful drug use, he would not have been admitted to law school, and it is highly unlikely that he would have found himself in a position to run for President. A reporter should ask him if he thinks that the nation would have been better off if the law had been enforced against him.
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