When Obama’s supporters come to volunteer this evening, they will be
greeted by a crowd holding political signs. It’s not an Occupy protest
or a Republican rally – it’s a rally in support of medical marijuana access,
organized by voters who feel left out of the electoral debate. From
Washington, D.C. to Washington State, from New York City to Denver,
Colorado, patients and their supporters will be asking, how can I vote
against my health in November?
My organization, Americans for Safe Access, has been engaging voters since July with our Camp WakeUpObama campaign,
helping to give a voice to patients and their families. Today campers
mark the end of summer with nationwide rallies outside of Obama’s
campaign offices, because we’re not being invited inside. Things would
be different if the President would apply his campaign slogan,
"Forward," to our cause: stopping the raids and prosecutions of
state-permitted institutions, and moving public health policy forward by
ending the conflict between state and federal law.
I can’t ignore the fact that many responses to Camp WakeUpObama have
been critical and to those of you who disapprove I ask, what else are
patients supposed to do? In asking President Obama to fulfill his stated
policy of respecting state compassionate use laws, we are not asking
him to do anything unpopular: 80% of Americans support safe access to medical cannabis, 74% are against the stepped-up raids and prosecutions and Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is polling at 7% in Colorado campaigning on this issue. Even two-thirds
of Republicans support state medical cannabis laws. With the public on
our side, why should patients and our loved ones be silent?
Camp WakeUpObama is not about encouraging people to vote for Romney
or any other challenger, but about expressing our own points of view.
When I wrote
during the Democratic National Convention that pro-marijuana candidate
Gary Johnson’s poll numbers could make him a spoiler in the crucial
swing state of Colorado, I wasn’t criticizing third-party supporters, I
was showing Democrats the proof that their standard-bearer’s
wrong-headed cannabis crackdown is costing the party votes. I never
thought that Mitt Romney’s campaign would be emailing reporters our talking points or that his vice-presidential nominee would publicly support
state decisions on marijuana law. Though a lot has happened in the past
few months, it’s not too late for Obama to seize the issue.
Many of us want to be supporters of the President, to be a part of
his movement. Obama has done great things for other patients but for my
medical needs, which include cannabis, treatment has become only less
affordable and more limited. When we listened to DNC speakers praise
health care reforms for helping family members receive organ
transplants, it was a painful reminder that our community had just
buried Norman Smith,
a man denied a transplant because of his doctor-recommended medical
marijuana therapy. It was saddening to hear speaker after speaker talk
about Obama expanding access to health care, when the same man ordered
the destruction of our access to vital medicine. And it was frustrating
to watch Obama’s now-infamous
Harold and Kumar video, in which he asked fictional stoners for support
while turning his back on real-life medical marijuana patients.
In four years, Obama’s DEA has taken action against far more medical
marijuana facilities than during the eight years of Bush. Despite
promises to govern according to science rather than politics, his
administration is going to court to contend that marijuana has "no accepted medical use." And all of these raids, prosecutions, threatening letters, and asset forfeitures have occurred while Obama’s Attorney General
denies following an anti-medical cannabis policy. At least George W.
Bush and John Ashcroft admitted they were waging a war on us.
Camp WakeUpObama brings forward the voices of those who feel
conflicted about voting for someone who is prosecuting members of their
community and closing down their trusted sources of medicine. I’m not a
one-issue voter, but I should be able to vote for someone who cares
about my health. I know that ordinary patients can make a difference –
after all, it was the $20 donor who elected Obama.
It’s 46 days before the election, and the President is having a good week.
But support for Gary Johnson and the closeness of the race make Obama’s
unpopular medical cannabis crackdown an unnecessary roadblock to his
reelection.
So today medical marijuana patients rally to wake up Obama and wake
up his supporters. We want the President to apply his campaign slogan
"forward" to medical cannabis: it is popular, it is good medicine, and
it is good policy.
