Rice Bowls Gotta Be Protected; DEA Edition

DEA chief Chuck Rosenberg [last] Wednesday rejected the notion that smoking marijuana is "medicine," calling the premise a "joke."

And now people, with some justification, want his head.

A petition calling for President Barack Obama to fire acting Drug Enforcement Administration chief Chuck Rosenberg over his remarks on medical marijuana had gathered over 28,000 signatures, by Thursday afternoon.

This is about as unsurprising as it comes. The Prime Directive for any bureaucrat is to protect their power. Legalizing medical marijuana, let alone legalizing pot altogether, would seriously reduce the DEA's power (and budget).

I suspect that the Chief of the Bureau of Prohibition wasn't in favor of the 21st Amendment. The bureaucratic reasoning would have been identical: Operation Protect Our Rice Bowl.