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Even the Obama Family Not Spared Drug War Lunacy


This is just sad, especially for George Obama. I have hope President Obama takes this to heart and brings us real change by rejecting the failed prohibitionist policies of the past, crafting a way out of the drug war morass in which this country is mired, dragging so many other nations with us.

President's relative arrested in Kenya after alleged marijuana seizure

8:38 a.m. ET, Sat., Jan. 31, 2009

NAIROBI, Kenya - The half-brother of President Barack Obama has been arrested for alleged possession of marijuana, Kenyan police said Saturday.

Area police chief Joshua Omokulongolo said George Obama was picked up Saturday and was being held at the Huruma police post in the capital.

Omokulongolo said officers found one joint of marijuana on him.

Obama reportedly denied the allegations.

"I don't know why they are charging me," CNN quoted Obama as saying from jail.

George Obama and the president had the same father but are not believed to have a close relationship.


Considering the Obama administration just a week ago raided a marijuana dispensary operating legally under California law in South Lake Tahoe, I am not inspired by Obama's continued silent acquiescence to the outrageous and failed federal drug policies of the last 37+ years.

Aside from the ostensible failures of these policies, how can President Obama ignore the statistical reality that the drug war has been largely a war by proxy against minorities, especially poor African-Americans? One of Obama's own hometown newspapers tells this sad story.

Stop the madness, President Obama. Americans (and now, your brother) are suffering enough without being criminalized for marijuana or for operating a state-sanctioned above-board business dispensing marijuana. These people have the right to earn a living too and shouldn't have it snatched away by authoritarian thugs.

Show us you truly value freedom and free enterprise for all us lesser mortals, rather than wasting our national resources on the continued folly of a rogue federal law enforcement agency that arbitrarily and capriciously enforces antiquated prohibition laws.

Aside from the billions wasted on this "war" of attrition, it also comes at the life-crushing expense of otherwise peaceable, productive, law-abiding citizens.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Thank you Tyler! I appreciate you reporting on this! Kenya allows up to a 1 year prison sentence for this, and then denies that they treat people preferentially! But they can't lock the whole world up, so they do.

Just like here, in the USSA.

Thanks for the vigilance!

-Jake Witmer
February 2, 2009 at 4:35 AM
Tyler Nixon said…
Thanks for coming by to visit, Jake.

Thankfully George Obama has been apparently been released and the charges dropped.

One has to wonder, though, if this hearkens to the preferential treatment you mentioned....i.e. you can't be locking up the U.S. President's brother for marijuana. But any other shlub would still be in the joint, waiting for trial.

I didn't want to be flip about Mr. Obama's drug charge, but I thought about naming this post :

"My brother got elected President of the United States and all I got was this lousy joint."
February 2, 2009 at 10:11 AM
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