Indopedia All Things Marijuana
President Obama’s Administration wanted to decriminalize marijuana nationwide, but according to a report from the Huffington Post, officials were so concerned that it would distract from efforts to attack and control the opioid epidemic that it never took the leap.
A former official with the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) told the news source that, during President Obama’s first term, the agency seriously considered recommending a policy change that would have eliminated the criminal penalties associated with minor marijuana possession. However, the office felt the issue would take much time away from its focus on the opioids, so officials buried the idea.
There was also a bigger problem at the root of the ONDCP’s decision to back away from plans to support decriminalization, as there was concern that coming out publicly in support of this reform might conflict with the very law that allowed the office to exist in the fist place.
Until 1998, there was not such thing as the ONDCP. The office was eventually created in an effort to prevent the legalization of illicit substances, a position that was supposed to offer no “surrender in the war on…
