Obama in Prison: Why He’s Lucky He Went as President, Not as a Pot Convict

[eridani]

Where I would disagree with Obama is in calling cannabis use a "mistake." Using drugs is only a mistake if you get into a bad relationship with the drug. That is far less likely to happen with cannabis compared to other drugs, legal and illegal, though I'm sure it happens.

http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/07/16/obama-lucky-visit-prison-president-not-pot-convict?cmpid=tpdaily-eml-2015-07-16

So, Why Should You Care? Half of the more than 200,000 people serving time in federal prison are locked up because of nonviolent drug offenses. And you don’t have to be an El Chapo–style kingpin to end up doing time in a federal prison. According to the ACLU, 88 percent of marijuana arrests are for possession—not people trying to sell drugs but trying to use them.

There’s also a significant racial disparity in who gets arrested for drugs. In her 2010 New York Times best-seller The New Jim Crow, civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander detailed how more black Americans are in prison or jail, or on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850. The ACLU found that a person who is black is 3.67 times more likely to be arrested for pot possession than someone who is white. “About one in every 35 African American men, one in every 88 Latino men, is serving time right now,” the president said during a speech at the NAACP’s national conference in Philadelphia this week. “Among white men, that number is one in 214.”

During his visit to El Reno, Obama made it clear that he wasn’t advocating for shorter sentences for rapists and murderers. But teenagers who might have been busted with a bag of weed during a traffic stop are branded for life with the “felon” label. They’re no longer eligible for student loans, and they have to check the “felon” box on job applications, which helps contribute to the United States’ sky-high recidivism rate.

“When they describe their youth and their childhood, these are young people who made mistakes that aren’t that different from the mistakes I made and the mistakes that a lot of you guys made,” Obama said after the visit, according to the Times. “The difference is, they did not have the kind of support structures, the second chances, the resources that would allow them to survive those mistakes.”

[Scuba]

2. His hypocrisy reeks like moldy ditchweed.

[katmondoo]

3. Maybe the Donald would be more to your liking

[Fred Sanders]

4. Sure, because being the first President to visit a prison is just another sign of the anti-Christ!

Openly calling for criminal sentence reform that is unjust to minorities is the work of the devil, no doubt.

And those dozens of pardons for non-violent drug offenders clearly a cover plot to hid the real intention which is.....something, something bad, real bad.

We get it. You like Bernie. Who likes Obama. Who you hate.

Talk about hypocrisy is cheap.

[Scuba]

5. He could legalize with a stroke of the pen, but chooses not to do so.

[Fred Sanders]

6. You mean with the shake of his magical Executive Kenyan ju-ju sticks? Presto? No, that is not how it works.

[Scuba]

9. Yeah, it's not like the Justice Department or FDA work for the President.

[Fred Sanders]

10. Actually, they do not "work"for the President. They are independent agencies, the point being that Obama is not King. You seem to have

a slightly authoritarian bent, which is a real paradox.

[Scuba]

11. You're hilarious.

[Fred Sanders]

12. I know, thanks for the shout out. Ditto.

Cynicism is what the real enemy camp is trying to sow, we should not be helping.

[RussBLib]

7. I don't think he can legalize with the stroke of a pen

by legalize, you mean weed? If so, I'm pretty sure Congress would have to do that.

He COULD give clemency to a whole lot more non-violent offenders by executive action.

And that pissed me off too, when he called his marijuana use a "mistake." He's still playing it safe. If you really think it was a mistake, why not crack down on Colorado? And Washington? And Oregon?

He is being pretty hypocritical about it.

[Fred Sanders]

8. I wish DU folks would appreciate that Unhinged Hating of Obama is an area well covered by Republicans.

And if by "hypocritical" you mean "using one word out of context to distort a complex policy", then you are right.

Still, a very excellent President, despite the lack of total perfection, you must agree on that?

[eridani]

14. Actually, the Obama justice department has done WA, CO and OR a huge favor

Cannabis use is still a federal crime, and any federal prosecutor could have hauled our asses into federal court. Norman Goldman pointed out that the decision not to was deliberate.. Any Republican president would have quickly used federal courts to nip our local experiments in the bud (so to speak).

[Warren DeMontague]

13. I'm glad he's at least starting to address it.

He's not perfect on the drug war but he's moved the ball farther down the field than any other president.