“A system designed to protect individual liberty will have no punishments for any group and no privileges. Today, I think inner-city folks and minorities are punished unfairly in the war on drugs.
For instance, blacks make up 14% of those who use drugs, yet 36 percent of those arrested are Blacks and it ends up that 63% of those who finally end up in prison are Blacks. This has to change.
We don’t have to have more courts and more prisons. We need to repeal the whole war on drugs. It isn’t working. We have already spent over $400 billion since the early 1970s, and it is wasted money. Prohibition didn’t work. Prohibition on drugs doesn’t work. So we need to come to our senses. And, absolutely, it’s a disease. We don’t treat alcoholics like this. This is a disease, and we should orient ourselves to this. That is one way you could have equal justice under the law.”

—  Ron Paul

GOP Presidential Forum at Morgan State University http://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/p/30724045/Stands-on-race-Paul-can-not-deny.aspx, September 27, 2007
2000s, 2006-2009

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A system designed to protect individual liberty will have no punishments for any group and no privileges. Today, I thin…" by Ron Paul?
Ron Paul photo
Ron Paul 148
American politician and physician 1935

Related quotes

William F. Buckley Jr. photo
William F. Buckley Jr. photo
John Ehrlichman photo
David Boaz photo
Bill Hicks photo
Ron Paul photo
James P. Gray photo

“Sending Robert Downey, Jr. to prison for drug use makes no more sense than locking up Betty Ford for using alcohol. Now if it's Darryl Strawberry and he uses drugs while driving, that's a different matter; he should do time.”

James P. Gray (1945) American judge

As quote in Coast Magazine, Jim Wood, “Interview—Judge James P. Gray—The Newport Beach resident talks about America's War on Drugs” (June 2001) Vol.10 No. 7

James P. Gray photo
Ellen Willis photo

“The drug war has nothing to do with making communities livable or creating a decent future for black kids. On the contrary, prohibition is directly responsible for the power of crack dealers to terrorize whole neighborhoods.”

Ellen Willis (1941–2006) writer, activist

"Hell No, I Won't Go: End the War on Drugs", The Village Voice (19 September 1989) http://www.villagevoice.com/2005/10/18/hell-no-i-wont-go/
Context: The drug war has nothing to do with making communities livable or creating a decent future for black kids. On the contrary, prohibition is directly responsible for the power of crack dealers to terrorize whole neighborhoods. And every cent spent on the cops, investigators, bureaucrats, courts, jails, weapons, and tests required to feed the drug-war machine is a cent not spent on reversing the social policies that have destroyed the cities, nourished racism, and laid the groundwork for crack culture.

Related topics