It turns out that Obama’s new running mate is one of the leading crusaders in the war on drugs.  Which isn’t something that’s likely to sit well with Obama’s base of young, college-aged supporters

Earlier this week, in an interview with the Washington Post, Tommy Chong was asked what the average citizen can do to further the cause of decriminalization. “Check out the people you’re voting for,” Chong replied. “For instance, Joseph Biden comes off as a liberal Democrat, but he’s the one who authored the bill that put me in jail. He wrote the law against shipping drug paraphernalia through the mail - which could be anything from a pipe to a clip or cigarette papers.”

Barack Obama’s V.P. selection Sen. Joe Biden also spnsored the Rave Act, which targets music events where drug use is allegedly prevalent.

About medical marijauna, Biden has said: “We have not devoted nearly enough science or time to deal with the pain management and chronic pain management that exists. There’s got to be a better answer than marijuana.”

Biden coined the term “drug czar” and has championed the Office for National Drug Control Policy. 

If there’s anything in this country that needs the vaguely-invoked “change” Obama is always on about it’s the war on drugs (it costs us a hell of a lot more than Iraq does annually).  America suffers from one of the highest per-capita incarceration rates in the world (yes, we’re worse than China) and a majority of those incarcerations are tied to drug arrests.  We spend billions upon billions on fighting the prohibition of marijuana and other drugs, and to what end?  Drug use, particularly marijuana use, isn’t declining

Meanwhile, politicians like Biden keep upping the ante in the “war on drugs.” They come up with harsher punishments to inflate our already too-large prison populations, and new ways to invade our privacy and curtail our freedoms for the sake of making even more arrests

Given that, is this really the guy Barack “Hope & Change” Obama wants on his ticket?

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