Petition Calls for Obama to Fire Head of the DEA

A petition on Change.org has already gathered 100,000 signatures, in a couple of days, calling on President Obama to fire the head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration. This is a response by those who are upset after the Director of the DEA, Chuck Rosenberg, called medical marijuana a “joke.”

Join the discussion: DEA Chief Says Medical Marijuana Is a ‘Joke’

Even Congress is getting into the act. On Thursday seven members of Congress wrote President Obama asking him to fire Rosenberg. On the floor of Congress, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) said:

Rosenberg is clearly not the right fit for the DEA in this administration. What is a joke is the job Rosenberg is doing as acting DEA administrator. He’s an example of the inept, misinformed zealot who has mismanaged America’s failed policy of marijuana prohibition. Rosenberg’s claim that more research is necessary is true, but it reeks of hypocrisy because the DEA under his leadership has made badly needed cannabis research difficult, often impossible… Sadly, these actions by administrating officials are indicative of a throwback ideology rooted in the failed war on drugs, which needs to stop

The petition was started by the Marijuana Majority. The group’s chairman, Tom Angell, said that Rosenberg’s comments are “not only offensive to millions of seriously ill people who rely on medical marijuana, they are out of step with where the vast majority of the American public is on this issue.”