Today, April 3, is the primary election in Maryland, where I am registered to vote. We vote on a computer touch screen. I checked in and up came Barack Obama. I touched the blank box, and it turned red with a black X in it. And then I thought about the DEA/IRS/U.S. Marshals raid in Oakland yesterday at Oaksterdam University and the temporary detention of Richard Lee, the man who financed most of Proposition 19, the 2010 vote in California to legalize marijuana there.
I unchecked my vote for Obama! I voted for uncommitted. And I did not vote for any delegates to the Democratic convention who were committed to him, with the exception of a personal friend.
How could I vote for an administration that has demonstrated hostility to so many people I know the day after they raided Oaksterdam University to use law enforcement to retaliate against a political dissident?
I've known Richard Lee for almost twenty years. I worked with him to try to pass Proposition 19, which received 46.5 percent of the vote.
Why did the U.S. government raid Oaksterdam University yesterday? Was it because Oaksterdam posed some emerging critical threat to the health and welfare of the people of Oakland or the the people of California or the United States? No.
I think the raid was conducted to protect President Obama from potential embarrassment at the April 14-15 Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia. This raid was staged now so that President Obama can reject discussion of marijuana legalization, and deny the assertion that in California, "marijuana is legal."
How could I vote for an Administration that used the awesome power of federal law enforcement for political advantage? The day after that cynical misuse of power? No!
What alternative better explains the timing of this raid?
In recent weeks, the Presidents of Guatemala, Colombia and Mexico, which for years have been facing the incomprehensible violence of warring illegal drug gangs and and their corrupting power due to their profits from drug prohibition, have encouraged discussion of "market alternatives" to prohibition, that is, discussion of legalization or regulation of the commerce in drugs.
The United States government remains steadfastly opposed to any serious discussion of this approach to drug control. Last month, it sent Vice President Joe Biden on a mission to Central America to attempt to squelch any such discussion.
Many American voters are in families that emigrated to the United States from Latin America. They are likely to be attentive to the news from the Summit of the Americas. President Obama, facing the voters in 7 months, dreads any news that will rival his message of adeptly managing relations with the rest of the hemisphere, especially over economic issues.
Certainly since I went to Latin America in 1983, helping to staff a Congressional Delegation that was meeting the Presidents, Prime Ministers, Ministers of Interior and Justice, etc. of Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia and Jamaica, leaders of those nations have expressed their frustration that large number of Americans pay billions of dollars to consume large volumes of drugs produced in their countries. This large demand for drugs continues, year after year, decade after decade, seemingly with impunity, yet the greatest costs seem to be paid in the blood of Latin Americans. This argument is continuing to be made by current presidents, such as President Felipe Calderon of Mexico.
The raid against Richard Lee, probably America's most prominent, hands-on marijuana legalization activist and recent reform financier, is the latest crass, calculated move of the Obama Administration to rebut those charges.
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