Marijuana Blog

Brad Pitt, John Legend, Russell Simmons, Danny Glover and filmaker Eugene Jarecki released joint statements in praise of President Barack Obama's evolution on the enforcement of marijuana legislation on Wednesday, agreeing with Obama's assertion that "we've got bigger fish to fry."

 

The president was discussing recreational marijuana use in Colorado and Washington, two states that legalized recreational pot use by adults.

 

Pitt and company -- executive producers of the Jarecki-directed film "The House I Live In" -- released the following statement:

 

President Obama should be commended for expressing the will of the people in Colorado and Washington. Our jails are overburdened with nonviolent drug users in this country, too often serving harsher sentences than violent criminals. This defies all common and economic sense. The President’s statement reflects a saner and more sensible drug policy, and a step away from the decades long failed war on drugs

 

"The House I Live In" is an award-winning documentary that urges reforms to drug laws, with a particular focus on sentencing. Jarecki himself released the following statement:

 

“I applaud Obama for respecting the people’s vote in Colorado and Washington. Many non-violent offenders have substance abuse problems that would be better served by public health policy solutions than excessively severe criminal justice approaches that have over forty years demonstrated their total wrongheadedness. We need to shift the paradigm for the war on drugs away from the ideology of ‘tough on crime’ toward being ‘smart on crime.’ This means a shift away from industrial mass incarceration of the nonviolent toward treatment, education, and rehabilitation.”

 

Though Obama told Barbara Walters he believes that "it would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational users in states that have determined that it's legal," critics point to his administration's aggressive crackdown on California's medical marijuana industry as evidence the president's pot rhetoric doesn't always match Drug Enforcement Agency directives. Medical marijuana is legal under California law.

 

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com