Obama's Latest Nominee on Medical Marijuana: WTF?

by Andrew Marantz · 2010-02-04 15:58:00 UTC
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Dear Obama,

WTF, dude? I thought we had an understanding. I've been defending you to all my lefty friends; every time they start in with "He's not doing enough on Burma" or "He's weak on gay rights," I say, "Look, he has a master plan. Be patient." Then you go and nominate Michele Leonhart to be head of the DEA? What gives? How am I supposed to defend that??

Leonhart is a Bush appointee who opposes the decriminalization of medical marijuana. In 1989, being against medical marijuana would have been an unfortunate but understandable position. In 2010, it is no longer acceptable. We know pot is safe and has medical benefits. We've been over all this a million times. The list of people who support medical marijuana decriminalization includes 80% of Americans (aka your constituents), a vast majority of Democrats (aka the people who voted you into office), and a presidential candidate named Barack Obama. I can only think of two explanations for this. One: you might be trying to pick someone Republicans will like, in order to have an easy confirmation hearing. I know you just went through a nail-biter with Bernanke and it would be nice to cruise through a confirmation hearing for a change. But guess what? THE REPUBLICANS DON'T LIKE ANYTHING. Correction: they like the opposite of what you do. So stop pandering to them, OK? Pander to us for a change.

The second explanation is that maybe you just aren't as liberal as we hoped you were. In fact, I know you're not. In fairness to you, you never really claimed to be. You warned in your book that you serve as "a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." And as I wrote in my last post, I know you want to play to the center and be a New Democrat, and I do think that's admirable. But dude, holding back medical marijuana? That's not being a New Democrat; that's being an old Republican.

Yours Sincerely,

Andrew Marantz

Andrew Marantz is a freelance and criminal justice writer and master's candidate whose work has appeared in New York, The New York Times, Time Out New York.
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