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Thursday, March 28, 2024

The Obama administration has denied an online petition with more than 70,000 supporters calling for the legalization of marijuana.

Jordan Shepherd, a 19-year-old psychology junior, said the White House's response hasn't hurt the movement toward legalization. Rather, it has done the opposite.

"I think by actually completely ignoring the movement, he's made it stronger," said Shepherd, president of the UF chapter of NORML, a national organization that aims to repeal marijuana prohibition.

The petition, "Legalize and Regulate Marijuana in a Manner Similar to Alcohol," has 74,169 signatures. It is one of eight marijuana-related petitions the White House responded to on its "We the People" website.

Online petitions need 25,000 signatures within 30 days to elicit a response from the administration.

Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, wrote the response to the marijuana petitions.

Shepherd said he was surprised the administration chose Kerlikowske to respond.

"It's legally written in his job description that he is forced to oppose legalization," he said.

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 1998, Kerlikowske's responsibilities as director include taking any actions necessary to oppose the legalization of certain controlled substances, including marijuana.

He wrote that, according to the National Institutes of Health, marijuana use is associated with cognitive impairment, addiction and respiratory disease.

Kerlikowske also wrote the administration is interested in researching the drug's potential medical uses, but that the Food and Drug Administration and the Institute of Medicine have not found that smoked marijuana meets standards for safe and effective medicine.

Following the White House's response, similar petitions have surfaced. One, titled "Respond to the Marijuana Legalization Petition with an Argument that Doesn't Also Apply to Alcohol," was created on Oct. 28 and had 4,389 signatures Sunday.

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Despite the petitions, UF political science professor Albert Matheny wrote in an email that the issue probably won't be a main concern among politicians for a while.

"I think it's one of those ‘third rail' issues that no mainstream politician is ever going to touch," he wrote, "since the people who want it can get as much as they want, and the people who don't want it are at least symbolically satisfied that we have laws against it, even if they don't work."

 

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