Jimmy Kimmel, host of Saturday's White House Correspondents' Dinner, took the opportunity to address the issue of marijuana policy - one that President Barack Obama probably wishes would go up in smoke after recent grilling across the media.
"What is with the marijuana crackdown? Seriously, what is the concern? We will deplete the nation's Funyun supply?" asked Kimmel. He asked the audience to raise their hand if they've never smoked marijuana - and few hands were raised.
"Marijuana is something that real people care about," Kimmel said directly to Obama.
The President was featured in this month's issue of Rolling Stone, saying that he "can't nullify congressional law," and that he told the Justice Department to "properly prioritize your resources to go after things that are really doing folks damage."
Meanwhile, on Obama's watch, over 170 raids have taken place in nine of the states where medical marijuana is legal. That's just about as much as George W. Bush was able to oversee in two terms - double Obama's current years in office. "The prevailing excuse has been simply that dispensaries are federally illegal or that they are too close to schools and other so-called “sensitive uses” (according to federal standards, not to local or state standards)," says a blog entry on the Americans for Safe Access site.
And as for not being able to "nullify congressional law," Attorney General Eric Holder was a guest of The Huffington Post at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Holder is a big name around the marijuana activist community for confirming the "Ogden Memo" last December, saying that enforcement of marijuana laws was a low priority.
At the correspondents' dinner, "a HuffPost reporter noted to Holder that Obama's reference to 'congressional law' was misleading because the executive branch could simply remove marijuana from its 'schedule one' designation, thereby recognizing its medical use," notes Paige Lavender of the HuffPost. "That's right," answered Holder.
Retiring Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank also recently had something to say about the Obama-administration-helmed raids: "I think it's bad politics and bad policy," Frank told The Hill late last week.
Frank, who is not a marijuana user himself, had introduced the Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act, which would "prohibit federal interference in state-run medical marijuana programs," and move marijuana from a Schedule I drug to Schedule II.
Frank, much like Kimmel (but without the veil of comedy and a live audience) has also personally told Obama that he is making a mistake with his policy and its enforcement.
