by Floydian

Let's make this clear, I have never been an Obama supporter. In my opinion a few years in Senate does not qualify someone to run America. However, one of the first decisions he made as a president was one that I fully supported. He made it clear that the federal government would not spend their time and money chasing down users of medicinal marijuana in states that have medicinal marijuana laws in effect.

Let's face it, when you are terminally ill and knocking on death's door, the last worry you need is whether or not you will have access to your medicine. I've personally spoken with medicinal users in Santa Cruz that had their medicine taken away during a DEA raid under the Bush administration and the effects on their lives were devastating. It took over two years of battling the government to get their marijuana back; but they won, and they got their medicine back from the DEA agents that had confiscated it in the first place. I would love to interview them again and let you know how they are doing now, but I can't. Most of them are dead.

That's one thing most people who don't use or understand marijuana can't wrap their heads around. Many of these patients are terminally ill. President Obama is directly attacking these medicinal marijuana patients. We aren't talking about crack users mugging old ladies under the bridge downtown to get a fix. We aren't talking about tweakers building meth labs in your local dive motel. These are just regular people like you and me, not criminals.

They are breaking no laws according to the states they live in....yet when the DEA busts down those doors in states like California, the police and other officials hired by the state of California to uphold the laws in those states do absolutely nothing to uphold those laws, or protect the citizens who's taxes pay their salaries.

On nine occasions so far, Obama has asked the public for ways to improve public policy and every single time, the legalization and decriminalization of marijuana and the use of medicinal marijuana has been brought to his attention. And every time he brushes it off or dismisses it like it was a joke.

My favorite example of this was at his first Internet town hall meeting. You know, the one where he accepted questions from people online. When the topic of marijuana legalization came up, his comments were, "Three point five million people voted. I have to say that there was one question that was voted on that ranked fairly high and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy [laughter] and job creation. And I don't know what this says about the online audience [laughter] but I just want -- I don't want people to think that -- this was a fairly popular question; we want to make sure that it was answered. The answer is, no, I don't think that is a good strategy [laughter] to grow our economy."

So yes, Obama literally laughed at the idea of legalizing marijuana. I mean it seems hilarious right?? It's illegal and it's still the number one cash crop in several states in America. It generates billions of dollars annually in California alone. I'm not saying I'm an economics expert, but laughing off an idea that could generate billions of dollars for our failing economy seems ridiculous to me. Especially when you see what a fantastic job he's done healing the economy so far.

Those who really care might even be inclined to do a little research on Obama and his flip-flopping ideals. Rewind to 2004 when Obama was running for Senate and told a group of college students that he supports the decriminalization of marijuana. Later in 2004, his campaign went on to say that he has always supported decriminalization. Now, staring down the barrel of next year's election, Obama has changed his tune. A classic political move.

And that's where we are right now. Stuck in a country where the uninformed think they know everything and those in power care only about themselves. Not only is the DEA cracking down on medicinal marijuana, so are the IRS, Department of Treasury and the ATF.

The IRS is making it so that businesses involved in medicinal marijuana can no longer deduct business expenses. The Department of Treasury is going after the banks where the dispensaries have their bank accounts set up in order to pressure them to no longer hold these accounts. The ATF is trying to make it so that anyone with a medicinal marijuana card cannot buy guns or ammo.

Is anybody out there?? The government is trying to take away your 2nd Amendment rights!!

To top it all off, Obama has denied several requests from scientists to study the true effects of medicinal marijuana. Again, instead of using science, evidence and proof, he's using ignorance to guide his decision on this.

Before the government goes attacking medicinal marijuana users, who are obeying the laws in their states, perhaps they should actually fund some government studies to see what potential benefits there are.

Even if you don't use marijuana, you should be outraged that the government is intervening like this. What happens tomorrow when they decide to do the same thing to users of cigarettes or alcohol. It sounds ludicrous right...but I remember when I was a kid you could smoke cigarettes anywhere. Now, most states have laws against smoking in restaurants, public spaces and parks. So you tell me, how ludicrous does it sound?