A recent Washington Times article by Robert Knight of the American Civil Rights Union attempts to portray President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder as hippies who want everyone to smoke ganja, and who don’t care a lick about enforcing federal drug laws.

This is an asinine distortion meant only to serve the ridiculous Republican Party establishment talking points that Obama is ‘soft on drugs’ and needs to double-down on federal enforcement.

Knight actually compares Eric Holder to ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ because of his supposed willingness to allow legalization of marijuana. In actuality, the Obama administration dramatically cranked up enforcement of federal drug laws in spite of repeated campaign promises to do the opposite.

According to this LA Weekly article citing an Americans for Safe Access study, the Obama Administration has cracked down on marijuana to a level dwarfing his predecessors. He has spent $300 million on enforcement of federal laws against medical marijuana, while Clinton and Bush only spent $200 million combined, dating back to 1996.

That doesn’t sound like the policies of a president who is happy to allow Americans to toke at their own free will. The administration was only forced to capitulate and allow Colorado and Washington state to move ahead with legal marijuana to save face. Had they challenged the voter initiatives in those states, they would have been rightfully seen as stomping on the will of the people. They would have also failed miserably, since they don’t have the resources to force their ban down Washington and Colorado’s throats. Attempting to enforce federal laws in light of voter approved state legalization would have made the feds look like a weak and ineffectual bully, so they had to relent.

Knight is either ignorant or a die-hard federal supremacist to pursue this line of argument.

Knight also makes some interesting points about Holder’s disregard of state’s rights when it comes to cracking down on voter fraud. The ridiculous comparison to the marijuana issue detracts from any type of legitimate point he was trying to make. His comments illustrate the confused line of thinking in the minds of many conservatives who still cling to the federal government’s ‘Just say NO!’ propaganda of the 1980s.

Some of these conservatives think that Obama is a tyrant and a despot who is maniacally working to overthrow the Constitution and install a dictatorship, and yet, they clamor for Obama to usurp more unlawful power to stamp out the will of the states when it comes to drug law enforcement. Talk about cognitive dissonance.

If these conservatives want to be taken seriously, they need to give up their prohibition fetish. Either they want Obama’s power to be limited, or they don’t. They can’t whine about Obama disobeying the Constitution on one hand and then clamor for Obama to destroy the Constitution on another.

They should be celebrating the fact that two states stood up, took a stand against Obama’s repressive policies, and forced the administration to capitulate. They should view it as a case study for how to push back against Obama on issues like guns, NSA spying, Obamacare and more.

Until conservatives are ready to drop the drug war hysteria and become consistent defenders of the Constitution, they will continue to enable the Obama Administration as it snatches more power away from the states and the people.

Stop serving as a lobbyists for Obama’s power-grabs and fight against every aspect of his unconstitutional agenda, not just the ones in line with your dated talking points.

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