“How Obama totally blew it on marijuana reform”

The title of this post is the headline of this notable new This Week commentary by Bonnie Kristian. Here are excerpts: 

The need to reschedule marijuana has been apparent for decades, since the classification system was first implemented by the Nixon administration. In the years that followed, activists tried multiple avenues in pursuit of rescheduling without success. Petitions were ignored; bills died in Congress; and courts took the DEA’s side.

But perhaps the most promising route to rescheduling is arguably the place it all started: the executive branch. Though the process isn’t simple, it has been done before and, through the office of the attorney general, could be done again.

Already, each of the 2016 Democratic presidential candidates have endorsed rescheduling, and on the Republican side, several candidates have taken federalist positions on pot, including explicit support for rescheduling from Ben Carson.

But why should we have to wait until 2017 or later for a new president to maybe decide to expend precious political capital on a rescheduling effort? This is an issue of real urgency, not only for families like the Schwabs, but also for medical research, which is significantly hampered by the Schedule I classification.

President Obama doesn’t see it that way. In fact, just last month, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) asked Obama if he would consider rescheduling marijuana during his final year in office. Obama’s answer was “disappointing,” Cohen reported. “On marijuana, he gave the same answer as when I asked him seven years ago: ‘If you get me a bill, and get it on my desk, I’ll probably sign it.'”

This is not particularly surprising given Obama’s past dismissal of drug war reform. Despite his willingness to apply his “pen and phone” to other issues in the face of congressional inaction — not to mention the fact that rescheduling would be a legally legitimate application for executive power — when it comes to marijuana policy, Obama is remarkably apathetic. He has stated repeatedly that reform initiatives should come from Congress; that he doesn’t see that happening any time soon; and that young people shouldn’t really care.

That’s a curious position for the erstwhile head of the “Choom Gang” to take. But personal hypocrisy aside, Obama’s failure to use his lame duck leeway on rescheduling is a remarkable failure for a president who should know better. It has been plain as day for years that marijuana has no business being a Schedule I drug. It’s time for America’s president to act on that common knowledge.