I would definitely like to see some National laws legalizing medical marijuana and decriminalizing possesion of small amount if not complete legalization!

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The White House said it expects those kinds of raids to end once Mr. Obama nominates someone to take charge of DEA, which is still run by Bush administration holdovers.
“The president believes that federal resources should not be used to circumvent state laws, and as he continues to appoint senior leadership to fill out the ranks of the federal government, he expects them to review their policies with that in mind," White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said.
Medical use of marijuana is legal under the law in California and a dozen other states, but the federal government under President Bush, bolstered by a 2005 Supreme Court ruling, argued that federal interests trumped state law.
Dogged by marijuana advocates throughout the campaign, Mr. Obama repeatedly said he was opposed to using the federal government to raid medical marijuana shops, particularly because it was an infringement on states' decisions.
“I'm not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue," Mr. Obama told the Mail Tribune newspaper in Oregon in March, during the Democratic primary campaign.
He told the newspaper the "basic concept of using medical marijuana for the same purposes and with the same controls as other drugs prescribed by doctors, I think that's entirely appropriate."

I think that the article does intimate that his administration is setting off in that direction. Baby steps!

Besides, he has some econ issues to sort out before he hands one down to all the stoners.

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On Feb. 5, the Obama administration quietly but firmly broke with more than a decade of federal policy on medical marijuana, signaling an end to the federal war on state medical marijuana laws. The question now is, what next?

In response to questions about a series of Drug Enforcement Administration raids on medical marijuana collectives in Los Angeles, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro told the Washington Times, "The president believes that federal resources should not be used to circumvent state laws, and as he continues to appoint senior leadership to fill out the ranks of the federal government, he expects them to review their policies with that in mind."

The low-key language may obscure what a sea change this represents. Ever since California voters passed the first modern medical marijuana law in 1996, official policy has been to use federal resources to attack these laws in every way possible.

Clinton administration efforts to bar doctors from recommending marijuana were shot down by the courts, but the Bush administration raided dispensaries and sometimes arrested medical marijuana patients and providers. Owners of buildings where medical marijuana dispensaries operate legally under state law have been threatened with seizure of their property.

Now there are 13 medical marijuana states, comprising one-quarter of the U.S. population. Support has been wide and bipartisan, from Montana to Rhode Island. Most importantly, a series of scientific studies published since 2007 have verified that marijuana is a safe, effective treatment for a variety of serious and painful medical conditions.

That represents both a challenge and an opportunity for a president who has committed his administration to "ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology" and "listening to what our scientists have to say. Even when it's inconvenient." The medical marijuana issue begs for that principle to be put into practice.

The first imperative is to install new leadership at the DEA -- leadership that will follow Obama's command to stop interfering with state medical marijuana laws and, just as important, stop obstructing science. The DEA has moved to block a medical marijuana research facility at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, despite the fact that its own administrative law judge recommended that the project be allowed to proceed.
The reasons given by acting DEA administrator Michele Leonhart -- a Bush holdover -- were transparently phony: an ideological opposition to medical marijuana dressed up in pseudoscientific language. This is precisely the sort of nonsense Obama has pledged to end.

But stopping the raids, cleaning out the obstructionists at the DEA and letting the University of Massachusetts effort (and other worthy research projects) go forward should be just the start. The federal law that classifies marijuana as having no recognized use in medicine and as unsafe for use even under physician supervision is scientifically laughable. The American College of Physicians, the American Public Health Association and the American Nurses Association are just a few of the organizations that have urged that this unscientific policy be rethought.

Here's a step the administration could take quickly, without Congress getting involved: Under a program begun in the late 1970s and supervised by the FDA, the federal government supplies medical marijuana to a handful of patients. President George H.W. Bush closed new enrollment into the program, called an IND (Investigational New Drug), back in 1992.
By reopening the IND, President Obama could help suffering patients in states that don't have medical marijuana laws, while maintaining tight FDA supervision to prevent abuse. The program could obtain data from these patients that would add greatly to our body of knowledge about medical marijuana.

If science is truly to triumph over ideology, medical marijuana is the perfect place to start.

He could stop the raids in a matter of minutes, his signature on an Executive order is all that would be necessary. All of the rest of that is BS, it ain't rocket science. VV

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I can understand if he's trying to come up with a more permanent solution by reorganizing things but i agree that he should just sign an executive order for the time being.

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