unreasonable.org

If you'd like to let the Obama campaign know how you feel about this, contact them at

http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/mypolicy

My message:

I am extremely disappointed by Mr. Obama's cowardice on the issue of cannabis decriminalization.

In 2004, he was wise enough to express support for ending criminal penalties for cannabis use or possession. And when the Washington Times recently dug up this fact, at first the Obama campaign stood behind this common sense policy. I thought that we might see the same courage that Mr. Obama showed on the failed Iraq War applied to the failed Drug War.

But within 24 hours, the Obama campaign was backpedaling, and declared that Obama does not support eliminating criminal penalties for cannabis.

That's shameful cowardice.

Let us not forget what criminalization of a behavior means: those who are caught doing it are forced in a cage at gunpoint. Does Mr. Obama think that he would have been better off if his own cannabis use had resulted in him being treated this way? I presume not, yet he wished to continue a policy that will do this to others people whose only difference from him is that they're unlucky enough to get caught.

That's shameful hypocrisy.

Tom Swiss - proprietor, unreasonable.org

I do think Obama is a man of courage, I never agreed with eliminating criminal penalties for cannabis in the first place. I don't have a good reason to support that, I hate drugs and they should stay illegal. I don't want to see all these drug dealers today to become respectable business men tomorrow, they have to pay for what they did and we need a legal basis for that. And that's for all the drug victims, there are too many people whose lives have been destroyed by drugs. We have thousands of kids struggling with drugs on the streets, we should better consider putting them in drug treatment, they represent out future.