Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA): “The time has come to stop locking up people for mere possession and use of marijuana.”

The Swamp: Jim Webb’s fighting political manifesto
In his new book, Virginia Sen. Jim Webb describes an America that lacks a coherent national security strategy while bogged down in a war that should never have been fought.

It is a country, he says, where the economic disparities between rich and poor have reached frightening levels.

And it is a nation, he says, that is waging an ineffective battle against crime by locking up more than 2 million residents– or 25 percent of the world’s reported prisoners.

It also serves as a political manifesto of sorts for Webb, who has been touted as a potential running mate for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in November.

On crime policy, Webb calls for rethinking a strategy focused on incarceration that he says is costly and ineffective.

“Either we are home to the most evil population on earth, or we are locking up a lot of people who really don’t need to be in jail, for actions that other countries seem to handle in more constructive ways,” he wrote.

“The time has come to stop locking up people for mere possession and use of marijuana. It makes far more sense to take the money that would be saved by such a policy and use it for enforcement of gang-related activities.”

Can you imagine?  A president in Barack Obama who says he “inhaled frequently – that was the point” alongside a vice president in Jim Webb who says it’s time to “stop locking up people for mere possession and use of marijuana”!

I try not to get my hopes up.  President Carter said we should decriminalize marijuana back in 1978, but then a cocaine scandal involving one of his staff sunk that initiative.  President Clinton became the first president from the cannabis-friendly baby boom generation, admitted to trying marijuana… and then presided over the rise in annual marijuana arrests from around 300,000 to around 700,000.

Yet this time I feel like we are on the verge of some serious change in federal cannabis policy.  Obama says he will not let the DEA raid medical marijuana states.  In 2004 he said we need to decriminalize marijuana, though he’s backed off of those statements during this campaign.  But during a time when our economy is busted and we’re fighting two wars in the Middle East, I’m hopeful that the lure of tax revenue from cannabis and expenditure reductions in the drug war will overcome the fear of change and the scaremongering about the “demon reefers”.

Then there’s John McCain, who has literally turned his back on medical marijuana patients on the campaign trail.  He talks a lot about reducing the size of government and eliminating wasteful spending.  Typical conservative points, but how come that never applies to the failed War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs?