There has been no crackdown because Obama and his DoJ have deliberately refrained from one.
Federal resources are not unlimited, but they are huge, and the choices about where and how to extend them are kind of why it matters who is running executive departments.
DEA wouldn’t have to arrest every state-legal weed operator to deliver an enormous chilling effect. They would just need to instill a reasonable concern in many of them, that they could be next.
It hasn’t played well for Carson. 
No. This is mostly just magical thinking. The federal government fears that if it did try to enforce its laws that it would be a laughingstock, and widespread civil disobedience would tarnish its aura of omnipotence. Not a good thing for a government.
I find it interesting that the republican candidates talk a lot about states rights when it comes to banning abortion and discriminate against gays, but states rights are irrelevant when it comes to legal pot.
I don’t know what world you live in, in which the federal government has an “aura of omnipotence.”
The DEA could stop people from operating storefronts with giant neon pot leaves in the window, but without cooperation from local law enforcement, they don’t have anywhere near the budget or manpower to bust all the street dealers that would spring up like dandelions in the event of a federal crackdown.
There’s no way to stop street dealers even in states where there is co-operation from local law enforcement. Obvoiusly many people continue to buy, sell and use drugs in states where its illegal on the local level.
But the point of legalization is to be able to do so in a relatively safe and legitimate feeling environment, without the risk of arrest. The DEA is more than capable of cracking down to the extent where this becomes impossible, even without help from local law enforcement. Also, note that generally, DEA actions in states like CA generally have had local law enforcement support. Without a state law, CA local authorities can’t go it alone, but they can still help federal authorites. And since legalization laws are genereally unpopular amongst a lot of local law enforcement, they’re often more than willing to do so.
Both the Bush and Obama admin cracked down on Medical marijuana dispensaries in California. Here’s a random example, but you can google for hundreds of others. I don’t think the people arrested feel like the Feds are a laughing-stock, in any case.
Maybe it’s because there simply aren’t as many people who want marijuana to be legal as you’d like to believe there are.
And what percentage of those people vote?
Oh, so now you’re going only by voters?
And in case you didn’t notice, a few states have made it legal, many states allow medical use and Obama is allowing states to handle it themselves.
And that’s all due to voters.
Isn’t that what we usually go by in a democracy?
None of those states have the constitutional authority to do that, though, which means that
Will cease to be of relevance after the end of the year.
Then let them elect Congressmen who will change the law - which, if legalization is as popular as you assert it is, they will inevitably do. It’s not the president’s role to decide what drugs are legal.
He never decided what was legal. He decided not to enforce those particular laws.
Which it is within his authority to do.
However, in the event that his successor feels differently on the matter, the net result is that all the people who were openly violating federal law for eight years will have been living on borrowed time and are going to have a lot to answer for.
I’m not surprised that a significant percentage are in favor of legalization, but I submit my opinion that they probably don’t feel very strongly about it. I think the reason it isn’t a big deal on the presidential debate agenda is simply that, in the great scheme of things, nobody cares. Not really. For most of us, there are just more important things to worry about.
Yes, that’s a real and different issue. It’s unbelievable that in the 21st century marijuana could be categorized as a Schedule 1 narcotic, a designation that goes back to the 1930s and a crusading idiot named Harry Anslinger. That requires immediate remediation, but unfortunately in the public mindset it’s inextricably linked with the legalization issue. It should be federally decriminalized and then the states can do what they want. Nobody needs Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio playing a modern-day Harry Anslinger.
Fun Fact: The latest vote-suppression scheme is to make the polls impossible to locate by attaching them to goalposts.
Yeah, this. I think the adults have grown-up stuff to worry about.
Like drinking? I think there’s pretty overwhelming evidence that a sizable number of adults are happy to indulge (and overindulge) in legal, recreational drugs.