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September II, 2013 jLlortlanh (Obstruer Page 7 Opinion articles do not necessarily represent the views o f the Portland Observer. We welcome reader essays, photos and story ideas. Submit to news@portlandobserver.com. Political Side Effects of Tolerating Legal Pot Ticking time bomb on the GOP’s doorstep by S anho T ree Attorney Gen eral Eric Holder’s recent announce ment that the fed eral government w ouldn’t chal lenge Colorado and Washington state’s ability to implement a legal regulatory sys tem for adult recreational mari juana use marked a tremendous political victory for reform if pot a definitive legal victory. Technically, pot remains illegal across the nation. But Holder went as far as he could under our system of checks and balances. While the Executive Branch can’t negate the laws made by Congress, the Justice Department found a way to “deprioritize” some of them. Holder told our 93 U.S. Attor- neys — who have traditionally fomia and other western states enjoyed a wide degree of latitude may continue to legally enforce and deference in deciding how to existing laws if they choose to do uphold federal law in their dis so. The political implications, tricts — to exercise prosecutorial however, are tremendous both at discretion. They were told to make home and abroad. marijuana enforcement a low pri By tolerating legalization in ority when those cases don’t vio Colorado and Washington, the late an eight-point checklist for federal government is at odds more serious federal enforcement with the UN treaties governing priorities. the international drug war. Since In other words, the authorities the United States used to be the don’t have to crack down on drug war’s chief global advocate, marijuana transactions in states this retreat on marijuana legaliza where they are legal unless some tion sends a powerful message to one is doing something like selling the rest of the world. to minors or running a drug c a r- . Many Latin American and Eu tel. ropean nations have long wanted While Holder can urge U.S. to overhaul their drug laws but attorneys to focus on more seri had been afraid of running afoul ous cases, he can’t legally order of the UN’s drug conventions them to do so. That renders his and perhaps triggering U.S. re guidance essentially voluntary. prisals. Now they have much Prosecutors can theoretically en more political space to consider force any federal law on the books alternative policies. That could despite what individual states de make a difference in Uruguay, cide. • which is on the brink of legaliz The handful of prosecutors ing recreational marijuana. who have waged a campaign Holder has essentially placed against medical marijuana in Cali- a ticking tim e bomb on the G OP’s doorstep that could deto nation’s population lives in ju nate during the 2016 presiden risdictions where marijuana is tial elections. Because federal legal for medical use. law remains unchanged, the next The GOP could avoid this administration can reverse his show dow n by w orking w ith guidance on a whim and resume Democrats to change the fed the war on pot. eral law before the primary sea All Republican candidates will son, although committing an act be asked during the primaries of bipartisanship could be seen where they stand on this key as betrayal by the far right. issue and any answer they can The GOP is stranded in a give will infuriate at least one of very dangerous minefield on re the GOP’s powerful factions. productive rights, immigration, A nascent civil war is brewing LGBT rights, and its marijuana between the social conserva policy. The older voters who tive and the libertarian wings of tended to support the culture the party. wars are aging out and younger Neither faction is known for voters tend to find those old compromising so this question wedge issues irrelevant, if not can become a powerfully divi offensive. sive wedge issue that could ac Regardless of how this plays celerate and ex acerbate the out with the U.S. Attorneys, the G O P’s civil war. W hichever political implications of Holder’s side wins, it will send the nomi guidance could shape the next nee into the 2016 election bleed presidential election and help ing from the fight. unleash a period of drug policy While it’s unlikely that 2016 “glasnost” around the world. politics figured into H older’s Sanho Tree directs the Drug decision, this issue isn’t going Policy project at the Institute fo r away. More than half of the Policy Studies. IM H M H M M M a In Forgiving His Enemies, He Achieved True Greatness Nelson Mandela’s distinction by D onald K aul The year 2000 marked not merely the end of a cen tury but the end of a millennium, a thousand years of history. The media’s desire to fill empty space with naming “the Person of the Millennium” be came all the rage. George Will, the unfailingly smug conservative columnist, made Thomas Jefferson his top dog of the last millennium. Ac cording to Will, Jefferson was our version of a Renaissance man, renowned as a scientist, archi tect, writer, politician, and politi cal thinker. It was he, as much as anyone, who articulated the ide als of his country, awakening minds throughout the world to the possibilities of freedom and equality. Jefferson’s halo has lost a little of its glitter in the succeeding was a deal-breaker for me. Who Mandela, the former South Afri enemies. years, w hat w ith the Sally then? can leader and revolutionary. In the early years o f his Hemmings story and all. Even I finally came up with Martin Today, as the 95-year-old ap struggles against the racist South back then, I didn’t consider it a Luther, the father of the Refor pears to be nearing the end of his African government, which in good choice. I said (silently) “Gee mation, who broke with the cor life, it still doesn’t seem a bad cluded Y1 years in prison, he was George, you’d think with 1,000 rupt Catholic church of the time choice. not the universally respected fig years to choose from you could and began the process of letting Allowing for the fact that the ure he was to become. Margaret have picked someone who didn’t light flood into the intellectual life very concept of a person of the Thatcher, for one, considered him own slaves.” of Western civilization. It floods millennium is silly — 1,000 years to be a Communist terrorist. And Besides, if America had a Re yet. is just too long a time-frame to indeed, Mandela made no secret naissance man in the colonial era, of his Marxist leanings or. his it was surely Benjamin Franklin. feelings that the banks and gold The best-selling author and hugely mines of his country should be popular philosopher was one of nationalized. the colonies’ most successful He was closer in thinking to businessmen, an accomplished Fidel Castro than Ronald Reagan. diplomat, a skillful politician, and, But when he became president to top it all, a self-made man. Plus of his country, he realized that he had a wonderful sense of hu retributive policies were a dead mor, a vice of which Jefferson end, so he didn’t nationalize the i was innocent. mines or banks. Mandela took no I was about to nom inate revenge on his enemies. He in Franklin as my Man of the Millen Then someone pointed out that pick a single figure, however he stead worked with them on is nium, when I learned that he too I had chosen one of history’s roic, above all the rest — he can. sues like land reform, poverty, owned a slave. It was nothing on great anti-Semites as my person certainly be counted among the and health. scale o f p lan tatio n -o w n in g of the millennium. His vicious great national leaders of history. If that isn’t unique in the annals Jefferson. But Franklin had an diatribes against Jews formed the Mandela’s greatness lay not of the past 1,000 years, it’s at African-American manservant template that Hitler was later to merely in his ability to stand up to least exceedingly rare. And for whom he “owned.” trace in his “final solution” to the the cruel forces of apartheid in that Mandela deserves whatever And, when you think about it, “Jewish problem.” South Africa and prevail. It was honor we can give him. he never did have much to say Finally, more in desperation the much more rare ability, once OtherWords columnist Donald about slavery, for or against. That than inspiration, I chose Nelson he had taken power, to forgive his Kaul lives in Ann Arbor. Mich. ’’ Mandela’s greatness lay not merely in his ability to stand up to the cruel forces o f apartheid in South Africa and prevail. It was the much more rare ability, once he had taken power, to forgive his enemies.