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Sen. Paul: Obama, Bush ‘lucky’ they weren’t arrested for smoking pot as kids
By Jordy Yager - 03/24/13 10:23 AM ET
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Sunday that President Obama and former President George W. Bush “got lucky” by not being arrested for smoking marijuana as young adults.
Arguing against mandatory minimum sentencing for pot use, Paul said that a marijuana-related arrest for either Obama or Bush could have ruined their lives.
“Look, the last two presidents could conceivably have been put in jail for their drug use,” said Paul on “Fox News Sunday.”
“Look what would have happened. It would have ruined their lives. They got lucky. But a lot of poor kids, particularly in the inner city, don’t get lucky. They don’t have good attorneys. They go to jail for these things. And I think it’s a big mistake.”
Paul said he was not in favor of using marijuana, because it makes people less productive. But he said he doesn’t support punishing people who use the drug with jail time.
“I don’t want to encourage people to do it. I think even marijuana is a bad thing to do,” said Paul. “I think it takes away your incentive to work and show up and do the things you should be doing. I don’t think it’s a good idea. I don’t want to promote that.
“But I also don’t want to put people in jail who make a mistake. There are a lot of young people who do this and then later on, in their 20’s, they grow up, they get married, and they quit doing things like this. I don’t want to put them in jail for the rest of their lives.”
Earlier this week Paul introduced a bill with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) that would relax the mandatory minimum sentences handed out to marijuana offenders who do not pose a violent threat to the public. The bill has gained the support of some influential conservatives, including anti-tax activist Grover Norquist.
Soon after announcing his bid for the presidency, Obama admitted to reporters in 2006 to smoking marijuana as a teenager. And one year before that, a series of secretly recorded conversations between Bush and a former adviser to his father documented the former Texas governor admitting to trying marijuana as a younger man.
President Clinton has said he did not inhale when presented with marijuana in his younger days.
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/290037-sen-paul-obama-bush-lucky-they-werent-arrested-for-smoking-pot-as-kids#ixzz2OTayHRS5
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Don't matter if you inhaled or not Bill- you were in possession-- and back them days with all 3 Presidents-- in many states possession of even the smallest amount was a felony....
I think we should be listening more to the Libertarians and folks like their last candidate Gary Johnson- who as a former Governor of a border state saw that the War on Drugs declared back in the 70's- has been totally lost...
Despite our best efforts at enforcement, education and interdiction, people continue to use and abuse illegal drugs.
The parallels between drug policy today and Prohibition in the 1920’s are obvious, as are the lessons our nation learned. Prohibition was repealed because it made matters worse. Today, no one is trying to sell our kids bathtub gin in the schoolyard and micro-breweries aren’t protecting their turf with machine guns. It’s time to apply that thinking to marijuana. By making it a legal, regulated product, availability can be restricted, under-age use curtailed, enforcement/court/incarceration costs reduced, and the profit removed from a massive underground and criminal economy.
By managing marijuana like alcohol and tobacco – regulating, taxing and enforcing its lawful use – America will be better off. The billions saved on marijuana interdiction, along with the billions captured as legal revenue, can be redirected against the individuals committing real crimes against society.
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When polled, high school kids say marijuana is easier to get than alcohol. Is this perhaps because they buy from black market dealers who do not ask for ID?
Legalization of marijuana would instantly and dramatically improve conditions on our southern border. Marijuana is Mexico's #1 illegal export; legalizing it would result in dramatically reducing the power and wealth of the drug lords, and instantly helping to restore stability in a nation whose stability and sustainability is truly vital to our economic and national security interests. If we truly wish to reduce border violence, take the profit out of it.
BEFORE WE CAN GET SERIOUS ABOUT REDUCING the harms associated with drugs, we have to accept that there will never be a drug-free society.
To create a drug-free society, we'd have to build a police apparatus so intrusive that all Americans would have to be under surveillance 24 hours a day... presumably for their own good. Would citizens of the "land of the free" ever stand for that?
Abuse of hard drugs is a health problem that should be dealt with by health experts, not a problem that should be clogging up our courts, jails, and prisons with addicts. Instead of continuing to arrest and incarcerate drug users, we should seriously consider the examples of countries such as Portugal and the Netherlands, and we should ultimately choose to adopt policies which aim to reduce death, disease, violence, and crime associated with dangerous drugs.
Honest, effective education will be key to succeeding with this transition. America has cut teen cigarette use in half, not by criminalizing possession and use, but through a combination of honest education and sensible regulation.
We can never totally eliminate drug addiction and drug abuse. We can, however, minimize these harms and reduce the negative effects they have on society by making sure drug abusers are able to access effective treatment options (jail is not an effective treatment option).
https://www.garyjohnson2012.com/issues/drug-policy-reform