Anybody know what the hell is going on with Barack Obama?
You know, the guy who admitted before becoming president that he was a college stoner and whose Justice Department initially acted like that it had better things to do than harass medical marijuana dispensaries?
Seems like now that Osama bin Laden is dead, Obama has suddenly decided that his biggest priority when it comes to safeguarding America's national security isn't getting our sagging economy back on track but rather curtailing California's blossoming medical marijuana industry. At least that's how it feels given that in the past week, the feds have started telling gun-store owners not to sell firearms to potheads and are now threatening California property owners with land forfeiture if they rent to dispensaries or pot cultivators.
The latest evidence? According to a report today in California Watch, the Obama administration is now threatening to prosecute newspapers and other media enterprises that run ads for medical marijuana.
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The report quotes U.S. Attorney Susan Duffy saying that this new phase in America's drug war is going to kick off in Southern California soon. “I'm not just seeing print advertising,” she said. “I'm actually hearing radio and seeing TV advertising. It's gone mainstream. Not only is it inappropriate–one has to wonder what kind of message we're sending to our children–it's against the law.”
One has to imagine this news hasn't gone unnoticed over at 420 Magazine's headquarters (although at the time of this writing it hadn't shown up on their homepage) or Cannabis Planet TV. But assuming you're reading this story, you probably already know that OC Weekly, like all alternative weeklies in states like California where voters have passed medical marijuana initiatives, runs ads for cannabis dispensaries in both print and online, as well as in weekly newsletters and our companion website, Toke Of the Town.
Given that part of our editorial mission is writing about marijuana, both medical and otherwise, you can expect to see much more about this latest development right here, in Navel Gazing's pot-related blog, Cannabis Chronicles. Assuming the feds don't raid our offices and lock up yours truly, that is.
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Award-winning investigative journalist Nick Schou is Editor of OC Weekly. He is the author of Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb (Nation Books 2006), which provided the basis for the 2014 Focus Features release starring Jeremy Renner and the L.A. Times-bestseller Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love’s Quest to bring Peace, Love and Acid to the World, (Thomas Dunne 2009). He is also the author of The Weed Runners (2013) and Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood (2016).