President Obama Keeps His Promise

There are thirteen states that have legalized marijuana for medical use. The states are Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. At the present time, New Jersey is also considering the measure.

The people of these states know that marijuana has medical value in relieving the suffering and restoring the appetite of seriously ill people. Their kindness and empathy toward the seriously ill and the dying has led them to approve its use with a doctor's prescription.

But not everyone cares about relieving the suffering of the sick and dying. Bush and his perverted ideologues thought their precious failed "war on drugs" was more important than helping the sick. He directed the DEA to raid the legal clinics set up to dispense the drug, and they shut down between 30 and 40 of these dispensaries. It was a prime example of the meanness of the Bush administration.

Fortunately, our new president has a conscience and actually cares about ordinary Americans. While he was campaigning for the presidency, he said, “My attitude is if the science and the doctors suggest that the best palliative care and the way to relieve pain and suffering is medical marijuana, then that’s something I’m open to. There’s no difference between that and morphine when it comes to just giving people relief from pain.”

He has now kept that promise. At a news conference last Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder said the DEA would no longer raid medical marijuana dispensaries and state laws would be honored regarding medical marijuana. The Attorney General said, “What the president said during the campaign ... will be consistent with what we will be doing here in law enforcement. What (Obama) said during the campaign ... is now American policy.”

It's refreshing to have a president who cares and keeps his promises.