Could the federal medical marijuana crackdown just be a staged distraction to draw attention away from the very criminal “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal the Obama Administration is embroiled in? Yes, according to journalist Martin A. Lee.

Lee has no hard proof of this, but does chronicle some circumstantial evidence and a coinciding timeline.

On October 7, the same day Holder wrote a detailed letter to Rep. Issa, defending his handling of the Fast and Furious affair, four federal prosecutors in California held a hastily organized press conference in which they threw down the gauntlet and announced the start of a far-ranging crackdown that would nearly decimate the Golden State’s medical marijuana industry.

Within ten months, close to half of California’s 1400 dispensaries would shut down as the DEA waged an all-out vendetta against what Proposition 215 had unloosed. The drug police weren’t just going after the bad apples; they were going after every apple in the barrel. Cannabis dispensaries abiding by state law were raided by federal agents. Federal prosecutors threatened to seize property from landlords who rented to medical marijuana facilities. The feds also threatened municipal officials who sought to implement state medical marijuana regulations. Federally insured banks and credit card companies refused to service marijuana-related enterprises.

Medical marijuana proponents were stunned and mystified by the ferocity of the Obama administration’s assault on the industry in California and elsewhere. Why did the former pot-smoking Choom Gang kid unleash the dogs of the drug war against a thriving business sector when times were tough economically and jobs were scarce? Why would the president risk alienating his base when public opinion polls showed that more than half of Americans favored legalizing marijuana for personal use?

Why indeed. These are questions we have been asking since last fall here at The 420 Times. My theory has always been that Obama needs the campaign cash from Big Pharma to match the seemingly unlimited war chest of the GOP and Mitt Romney. But what if there is more to it than that?

What if – instead of being the bumbling idiots I believe the Obama Administration to be – they are more calculating that any of us realize? After all, political distraction is a tried and true tactic, “wagging the dog” if you will, the art of attacking a new enemy to distract from political troubles at home. In this case home is the White House and the new enemy is medical marijuana dispensaries.

Maybe money from Big Pharma and bigger budgets for government law enforcement agencies are just the icing on a very large cake for the federal government.

- Joe Klare

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