Below is my column today in USA Today on the Obama Administration’s decision to cut off water to legal marijuana growers. Notably, the business concern today for the rollout of legal pot sales in Washington is greater demand than supply. I previously wrote about how a little known board had effectively moved to end the debate over the Redskins name, an example of agencies increasingly intervening in social and political disputes. This move by the Bureau of Reclamation is a prime example of such intervention into political disputes and a troubling precedent for the future.
When voters in Washington state and Colorado legalized possession and sale of recreational marijuana in 2012, federal officials were not happy. They will be less happy Tuesday when pot officially goes on sale in Washington. Though the Obama administration has pledged to respect state laws, it is quietly going in the opposite direction by cutting off water to the growers. The idea seems to be that if the administration cannot dry up the public support for legalization, it will just dry up the plants themselves.
Like areas from health care to immigration, a sharp disconnect between voters and their government is growing by the day. The administration and Congress are losing the debate over legalization.
Many citizens do not see the logic or necessity in the crackdown on pot. Support for legalization is soaring. In 1987, only 16% supported legalization. That increased to 26% in 1996 and 43% in 2012. It now stands at 55%. Two states have responded with legalization, others have taken a smaller step of decriminalization, and 20 states have legalized medical marijuana over the opposition of the federal government.
Democrats’ dilemma
With other programs such as health care already endangering Democrats in the next election, the administration does not want to openly oppose the wishes of more than half of the population. With one hand, it allows state experimentation, while the other hand, the Bureau of Reclamation turns off the spigot by ordering irrigation districts not to distribute federal water to farmers breaking national drug laws. No water, no pot.
The use of water as a weapon is not new in the West, where “water wars” were once common among ranches and even states. The federal government began in 1902 to take control over such waters with programs to build dams and waterways. What began as a few dozen projects grew into a massive system, in which the federal government controlled a significant portion of the water in 17 states with the construction of more than 600 dams and reservoirs. It is now the nation’s largest water wholesale operation, supplying to more than 31 million people and one out of five farmers in the West. It is not just water. The government’s 53 power plants annually provide more than 40 billion kilowatt hours that support millions of homes.
Though some have long chaffed at federal control over this essential resource, the government has insisted that its projects are designed to simply maximize the use of the resource. Indeed, with the growing national crisis over the loss of drinking water and many states experiencing droughts, the role of a neutral federal agency has never been more important.
That is why this latest move is so dangerous. The government already coerces states by withholding money unless they follow federal mandates. If the feds can now withhold water or electricity, too, that stranglehold will tighten.
The government supplies the water that sustains 10 million acres of farmland, and the farms that produce 60% of the nation’s vegetables and 25% of its fruits and nuts.
In Washington, that translates to the water for two-thirds of the state’s irrigated land.
Legal hypocrisy
Bureau spokesman Dan DuBray insists that the agency “is obligated to adhere to federal law.” However, that position is inconsistent with the actions of the Obama administration in other areas.
I testified in Congress on Obama’s non-enforcement orders issued in areas such as immigration and drug enforcement. In addition, Obama has issued controversial orders that effectively amend federal laws in ways that Congress had rejected. It rings rather hollow for the administration now to claim that it has no choice but to take this action to indirectly support drug laws when it has ordered the non-enforcement of so many others.
This is even less plausible when one considers that the Justice Department has altered its enforcement of the drug laws in light of state legalization. The administration is directly curtailing enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act, but a water agency is changing its operations to enforce that same law by other means. The agency could have simply supplied water to every state neutrally. Instead, it is taking action to punish these states.
The shutting off of the water in Washington and Colorado for these growers is not about pot but politics. Carl von Clausewitz once observed that “war is the continuation of politics by other means.” The same can be said about the opening salvo in a new water war.
Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors.
Cautionary tale for those who believe that the government can (and should) be trusted with ever more power.
Nick, in 1971, Nixon declared drug abuse to be “public enemy number one in the United States.” The “war on drugs” is a non-partisan affair.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/cron/
The #1 Paul wrote “However, once the water is flowing downstream/river the water should belong to a public utility and out of the hands of the feds.”
I seem to remember you live in Arizona, but it sounds like you do not understand water law. Easterners have no idea how complex it is in the West. More than a few people have learned the hard way after buying land with a stream running though it that they have no rights whatsoever to the water. Water law is a specialty, just like family law.
Oh, and by the way, when the Hoover Dam was being built and the water was being split via the Colorado River Compact, did you know that those years were some of the wettest on record? In other words, there is not enough water to satisfy all of the states’ demands in the Southwest.
Anyone interested in the truth about water in the west should read John Wesley Powell’s “Report on the Lands of the Arid Regions of the United States.” Powell was the second director of the USGS and the guy that famous lake was named after. There are some major fights to come over water in the West.
saucy – the feds built a couple of our dams but the rest were built by Salt River Project, which controls the water coming into Phoenix for irrigation. Most of the drinking water is treated well water by the various municipalities.
As an Arizonan, I am well aware of the Colorado Compact, which seems to continually be in one federal court or another getting settled. What is very interesting is that regardless of the water level, the tribes get their water without any deduction for drought (at least right now). Do you also know that Mexico is guaranteed water from the Colorado, but there never is enough, so we built a desalinization plant to supply them with their water.
If Jill Stein would have been elected the issue of legalized pot would have been over! Environmental clean up would already begun and how to use water would have begun to be negotiated. Too bad she wasn’t elected! Now, back to the current state of affairs!!!
rcampell:
Not to get into a tangental discussion about torture and who condones it, but, the Obama administration “condones” torture by its failure to hold those responsible to account. “Looking forward” is the same as approval regardless of what is said, as opposed to what is done.
The writing is not he wall, those with their “moral” objections to marijuana should get their heads out of the sand before they suffocate.
Our President smoked weed. He is a liberal. But, before anything he is a BIG GOVERNEMNT whore. The War on Drugs is an integral part of big government. It employs millions of Dem voting government workers, and it controls just another part of our lives.
Obama is a spigotry-challenged president (kudos to Squeeky), but does anyone here have any illusions as to what would have happened if Romney had been elected president? On January 1, 2014, when marijuana became legal in Colorado, Romney would have sent in the storm troopers. In this particular case, Obama is actually the least bad president.
The only problem with marijuana in Colorado is banking. Banks refuse to accept marijuana money because they are afraid of being accomplices in a federal crime. Marijuana businesses therefore deal in cash. An amusing problem has presented itself, where marijuana business drive an armored car to the doors of government offices, pay their taxes in cash, and Colorado and federal officials have no choice but to accept it (and count it, ha, ha). Obama is no different than Bush with respect to the banking sector, as either could have intervened (in the FDIC sense of the word) the Too Big To Fail banks and given them the Glass-Steagall treatment, but there was no difference between Hank Paulson and Timmy Geithner.
rcampbell, Obama is still doing extra ordinary renditions. What is happening to detainees at gitmo and Bagram is torture. Obama and his administration have failed to prosecute for crimes of torture. They are indeed O.K. with torture.
I find this objection to be silly. What Obama is doing is called COMPROMISE. I know that is a bad word for many, but he could be strict and enforce Federal laws and shut down pot production completely. Think THAT would be a good idea? This is similar to the objection raised by Obama mitigating some deleterious effects of the health care law. The opponents raise objections to some provisions, and THEN complain he met and accommodated them! GET REAL! This is not a serious complaint and is pure political grandstanding.
There are very good reasons to put pot on a lower priority than FOOD in distributing scare water resources. So please, not everything is a plot to take over more power for the President or Federal agencies. In fact, in my area of aviation, I wish the FAA would use more common sense more often. The TSA must have policies specifically prohibiting common sense too. Any reasonable person knows that strictly following the absolute letter of the law can produce consequences that violate the spirit of it. So some latitude is needed, and the Constitution provides that mechanism called impeachment if the President goes too far.
Washington is a very liberal state. This will not sit well with the progressives in the party. Joe Blow is right, but other crops also suck up a lot of water. Water rights are usually in acre feet or minutes of water per x. However, once the water is flowing downstream/river the water should belong to a public utility and out of the hands of the feds. Are each of these growers going to have to get a note from DOJ saying the DOJ is not planning to prosecute?
Holmes
No one in the Obama administration has ever condoned or been “ok with torture”. That was Bush/Cheney’s pride and joy.
Pot growers use up an absorbent amount of water. And when the local communities are facing severe drought cutting off the water supply is a good thing. The administration is not discriminatory in who they shut the valves off to.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/20/drought-to-cut-off-federa_n_168759.html
All hail Emperor Obama!!
This is the power elite speaking to the people. They are telling us who controls the resources of our society. They do!
Detroit is shutting off water to it’s most poor and vulnerable citizens, Even the UN has called for that to stop. Yet it has not stopped. I take this as one more call to wake up and see who is “owning” our common resources and who is willing to work for the elites.
(Obama is a complete hypocrite, having admitted to using marijuana. Bush also used marijuana as did Clinton.)
Where does Mitt Roma stand on this issue?
Help. please. Comment lost. Thank you.
Squeeky w/ a leadoff homer! LOL!
Obama is ok with torture but pot growing even when it’s legal in your state has got tot stop! HYPOCRACY and over reach seems to be this administration watch word. The use of water as a weapon of control will destroy what is left of humans respect for government. What can he be thinking.
I guess we need to add “Spigotry” to our New Word list.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporteru