Legal Commentary

The Shift in Obama's DOJ Policy

By Jeralyn

The New York Times today reported on the huge shift that will take place in the Justice Department under President Obama. He will be breaking with the policies of the Bush Administration.

I sat down to read it anxious to get to the part about our unfair crack-powder cocaine sentencing laws, over-reliance on long prison sentences and need for alternative sentences in the federal system, and ending raids on medical marijuana patients and providers in states that had legalized it.

There were none. Law Prof Doug Berman of Sentencing Law and Policy has the same disappointed reaction as me. Of course, I never expected any as I wrote throughout the course of the primaries. But now that change is here, my hopes went up just like everyone else's. And I'm still hopeful there will be some relief.

I had to pick a topic yesterday for my talk at the NORML Aspen Legal Conference in June. (Link not available yet, here's the one for 2008.) I chose, "High Hopes and Modest Expectations: Drug Law Reform under President Obama and a Democratic Congress." Looks like that was a good choice.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 02, 2009 (boomark / email).