Some of us have been members of the Democratic Party for a long time. With the 2008 election season approaching, it is a good time to take a look at our own politics as we evaluate those of the candidates we consider.

There is an all-too-common belief among marijuana smokers that the Democratic Party is where they belong. This may be true for other political reasons. For example, the Democrats have a proud history of defending many civil liberties. But they have never been trustworthy on the issue of marijuana.

This is not to suggest that the Republican Party is any better, or that there are no Democrats who believe strongly in marijuana law reform. It is merely an acknowledgement that ending marijuana prohibition will not be a partisan affair. And the longer marijuana smokers marginalize their true allies in Washington, the longer we will wait for the end of prohibition.

Marijuana politics have changed a great deal over the years. But, like a frog in a slowly heated pot, many of us have not noticed that our environment is not what it used to be.

Prohibitionist rhetoric has become increasingly secularized. While cannaphobes used to preach that marijuana would send you to hell, today they more commonly advance health concerns as their justification for prohibition. This shift has begun to put marijuana users at-odds with the core of the Democratic Party.

Today’s marijuana movement is based on John Stuart Mill’s ‘harm principle,” which states that, unless we are harming others, our actions should be no business of the government. This foundation is difficult for most Democratic Party leaders as they have a tendency to support government intervention in many other areas of individual liberty.

• In the labor market, the Democratic Party opposes the ability for employers and employees to agree to a contract for less money than legislators think is proper. They fear that bosses will exploit workers, so they advocate minimum wage laws that prohibit all individuals from controlling how much money they can accept in exchange for their labor.

• They oppose the freedom to plan one’s own retirement, and instead promote a mandatory government program that most believe will never pay us back.

• They believe that the government is responsible for making sure that people wear helmets when they ride motorcycles and use seat belts when they drive.

• They use health arguments (that sound very much like marijuana prohibition arguments) to advance anti-tobacco legislation and are now on a crusade against trans-fats.

(Of course, there are differences between marijuana law and each of these examples, but the underlying paternalism remains constant.)

We cannot expect those who argue in favor of such policies to spearhead an effort to end marijuana prohibition on the grounds of personal liberty.

For over three decades, marijuana reformers have looked to the Democratic Party for help and it has failed us. Even President Clinton was embarrassed by his connection to marijuana. And his ridiculous lie about not inhaling was only the beginning.

In an interview posted on Reason.com, Clinton said:

“I think that most small amounts of marijuana have been de-criminalized in most places and should be. I think that what we really need—one of the things that I ran out of time before I could do [it] is a re-examination of our entire policy on imprisonment.”

Bullshit. Reason nailed it:

We’re only left to wonder where Clinton was during the past eight years, as state and federal marijuana arrests continued to climb, as did the number of prisoners doing time for nonviolent drug offenses. Or where the president might have been in 1996, when both Attorney General Janet Reno and drug czar Barry McCaffrey threatened doctors in Arizona and California with license removal and jail if they dared prescribe medical marijuana in accordance with new state laws there. Could this be the same guy who canned Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders in part because she dared suggest that drug legalization was worth studying?

Yet most marijuana smokers refuse to hold Clinton accountable for his attack on our freedom.

In 2004, John Kerry was on record as being in favor of medical marijuana, but opposed to the decriminalization of personal possession. John Edwards was not nearly so tolerant. He supported federal raids on patients and caregivers and vowed to maintain the federal prohibition of marijuana (link).

Of course, not all Democrats want to put you in jail for smoking marijuana. Dennis Kucinich is one Democrat who has the spine to stand up for the rights of marijuana users without shame. But let’s face it; Kucinich is a rare bird in the Democratic Party. During his 2004 presidential bid, Kucinich said of medical marijuana, “I support it without reservation.” Today, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will not even take a public position on medical marijuana.

There are not enough Democrats like Dennis Kucinich to affect any national change in marijuana policy from within the Democratic Party alone. And since they are not representative of us, we must not be loyal to them.

With medical marijuana making progress at the state level, libertarian Republicans and Independents (and a handful of Democratic vertebrates) will be the future of marijuana law reform. The left wing’s “smash the state” mentality was sufficient to start the ball rolling towards ending prohibition, but it cannot take us any further. And the core of the Democratic Party does not want to. Howard Dean, the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, states plainly, “I wouldn’t crusade against it like Ashcroft, but I wouldn’t legalize it.”

The Democratic Party may be the only hope for many others seeking social justice and civil liberty, but it provides no hope for marijuana law reform.

Today, it is men like Bob Barr and Dana Rohrabacher who are representing us on Capitol Hill. It is a sad state of affairs when we cannot even rely on Democrats like Nancy Pelosi to advance the issue.

Eventually we must discard the old red and blue view of the political landscape and embrace all those who share a fundamental respect of individual liberty, no matter what their party affiliation. Medical marijuana provides an opportunity for this new unity if we can shelve our political prejudice and seize it. The lessons of history, however, do not leave us hopeful.

Three decades ago, marijuana decriminalization was thought to be the thread that would unravel prohibition. Yet, after waking from our apathetic slumber just long enough to shout “Legalize It!” marijuana smokers went right back to sleep and the Democratic Party dozed with us.

Now, Americans are waking up to the smell of freshly cured medical marijuana, but the Democratic leaders appear to have slipped into a coma. If we cannot now align ourselves with those we might otherwise disagree with, then the road to ending prohibition will be very long indeed. We certainly cannot rely on the Democrats alone to get us there.

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