September II, 2013
jLlortlanh (Obstruer
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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.