April 26, 2012 1:24PM # Obama Is But a Small Cog in Drug War Machine By [Tim Lynch](https://www.cato.org/people/tim-lynch) --- SHARE President Obama recently gave an interview to *Rolling Stone* and tried to defend his drug war policies–especially his *escalation* of the federal war against medical marijuana providers in California. Obama now says anyone who thought he was hoping he’d change course from the Bush-Ashcroft policies somehow got the wrong impression from his 2008 campaign. And, besides, he said you can’t blame the president for laws passed by the Congress. Obama would have us believe that he’s just a small cog in the drug war machine. A few questions for the president: 1. Have you thought about your [pardon power](http://www.pardonpower.com/2012/04/obama-where-is-mercy.html)? 2. Have you thought about [rescheduling marijuana](http://justsaynow.firedoglake.com/2012/04/25/obama-lies-about-federal-marijuana-law-to-rolling-stone/)? 3. Have you thought about [prioritizing federal law enforcement resources](https://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv24n4/specialreport.pdf)? 4. Have you thought about [urging the Congress to, you know, *change* the drug laws](https://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb111/hb111-33.pdf)? 5. Have you thought about [removing yourself from the presidential race](http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/04/25/usa-campaign-gingrich-idINDEE83O0CD20120425)? There’s still time. For related Cato scholarship, go [here](https://www.cato.org/drug-war). ##### Related Tags [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).