As voting for the legalization of Marijuana (Proposition 19 In California) is the forefront of headlines, many voters have the misconception that the Democrats are the liberals in this area but speaker Nancy Pelosi recently withdrew her vote in support of the bill while many Republicans have supported it. Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), the 2008 presidential hopeful and tea party patron saint, who recently wrote that “decriminalizing marijuana at the federal level would be a start” to ending “the insanity of the War on Drugs.” Do fellow tea party members and Utah Republicans agree with Congressman Ron Paul?  Calls to Utah  Senator Orrin Hatch’s office were unsuccessful.

However, just because many Republicans have been in support of Prop 19 the misconceptions that “the Obama administration has stopped busting dispensaries” (as noted in a Newsweek piece by Ryan Tracy) is anything but true. So, Utah’s pot smokers shouldn’t hold their breaths, because Marijuana use (medical or recreational) will most likely remain illegal for the foreseeable future.  Californians might be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel (or the bong) thanks in part to Republicans, but it appears that the Obama administration is still busting some California dispensaries pursuant to Federal law.