In his first internet town hall, President Barack Obama said he is against the legalization and taxation of marijuana. Since the majority of the questions for this town hall came from individuals via the internet, the response was instantaneous. Twitter users reacted swiftly with their disapproval (check it out on the previous article).
The tough part for politicians and businesses today is the quick reaction by bloggers, Twitter users, and Facebookers to write about what they see wrong. I trust that Obama has worked with experts to come to this decision for now- what's nice is it seems Obama isn't completely adverse to change and is willing to admit he was wrong and not have to stick to his guns. If a good argument is economically and scientifically presented, I'm sure he'd change his stance based on the evidence.
Once again, I'm torn on this issue. I'm wondering what my friends over at Faces and Voices of Recovery would have to say about this; I can say that there hasn't been a lot of uproar about this issue besides some Twitter feeds from Vaughn Howland.
It's really interesting to watch people in the industry start to get into social media, like blogging, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. I'm still working on ways to make all of this work better and would welcome any ideas to help use social media to help our cause. Make sure to check out the All About Addiction blog as well.
Here's a good argument pro-legalization.
Here's an interesting video from Lou Dobbs:
Here's something funny.
As always, find me on LinkedIn and Twitter. See you later this week.
Hey Mike,
ReplyDeleteI think you're right; Obama seems much more prepared to actually learn about the topic BEFORE making a final decision. There's no way that he would have said he supports legalization or even taxation until he has time to get some more advice on the topic. I think the new Drug Czar is a starting point and the debate will continue.
At least now there's a debate. Hopefully it will lead to educated, not arbitrary, choices being made.