“Who are we? We are people who love drugs. They say we like drugs. It's true. Especially marijuana. Marijuana has been good for us. God put it here for a reason and we need to find a way to live with it in peace. But we are also people who hate drugs. We have suffered from overdoses and addiction. But we know that drugs are here to stay, and prohibition and the criminal justice system is not the way to deal with it. And we are people who don't care about drugs. People who care about the Constitution, who care about 2.2 million Americans behind bars, who care about fundamental rights and freedoms.”

— Ethan Nadelmann

The 2005 International Drug Policy Reform Conference http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/411/2005dpaconf.shtml in Long Beach, California. November 2005.
The War on Drugs

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Ethan Nadelmann 7

American writer; campaigner for the legalization of mariju… 1957

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“Drugs: “There’s no way to keep them from getting in. Anyone who wants drugs can get them. We make arrests where we can, and so what? Me, I’m betting on Darwin.”
“How do you mean?”
“The next generation won’t use drugs because they’ll be descended from people who had better sense.””

Larry Niven book Flash Crowd

Flash Crowd, section 9, in Three Trips in Time and Space (1973), edited by Robert Silverberg, p. 77

“The Nazis spoke of having a Jewish problem. We now speak of having a drug-abuse problem. Actually, “Jewish problem” was the name the Germans gave to their persecution of the Jews; “drug-abuse problem” is the name we give to the persecution of people who use certain drugs.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Source: The Second Sin (1973), p. 64.

“Why do we put people who are on drugs in jail? They're sick, they're not criminals. Sick people don't get healed in prison. You see? It makes no sense.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Rant in E-Minor (1997)

“There's only two types of people who are against drugs: the people who have never done drugs and the people who really sucked at doing drugs.”

Doug Stanhope (1967) American stand-up comedian, actor, and author

Deadbeat Hero (2004)

“People can argue about the pluses and minuses of marijuana, but everyone knows it’s not a killer drug like heroin.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Twitter (11 August 2016) https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/763746712334852096, quoted in * 2016-08-11 Sanders joins Democrats criticizing DEA for marijuana decision David Weigel Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/08/11/sanders-joins-democrats-criticizing-dea-for-marijuana-decision/
2010s, 2016

“The effect of our drug policy on the health of people who use illicit drugs stem from four basic problems: (1) a lack of information about medial hygiene, because our laws push drug users away from the medical professionals who can help them; (2) no quality control regarding either the strength or purity of illicit drugs; (3) the inability of many drug users to prepare and use injectable drugs under more medically hygienic conditions;… and (4) the enormous pressure on drug addicts to engage in dangerous criminal activity, such as prostitution, burglary and drug dealing, in order to get the money to purchase these artificially expensive drugs.”

James P. Gray (1945) American judge

Source: Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It: A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs, 2011, pp. 126-127

“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 (1935) American politician and physician

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

“In today's anti-drug climate, people don't want to hear about the commercial potential of marijuana. The reason is that the flowering top of a female hemp plant contains a drug. But from 1842 through the 1890s a powerful concentrated extract of marijuana was the second most prescribed drug in the United States. In all that time the medical literature didn't list any of the ill effects claimed by today's drug warriors.”

Hugh Downs (1921) American broadcaster

"Hugh Downs commentary on hemp, for ABC News, NY, 11/90"

“There is no such thing as having both a free society, and a drug-free society. Put another way, dangerous as they are, these drugs are here to stay, and we should work to discover how best to reduce the harm they will cause in our communities.”

James P. Gray (1945) American judge

California Lawyer, “Just Say No,” (April 2001) pp. 52-55

“We shouldn't be wasting so much time and so many resources on prosecuting consensual crimes such as prostitution and drug possession. I hold drug possession and drug dealing as two totally different concepts. The drug dealers who resort to deadly street violence should be dealt with severely as the criminals they are.”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

I Ain't Got Time To Bleed (1999)
Context: We shouldn't be wasting so much time and so many resources on prosecuting consensual crimes such as prostitution and drug possession. I hold drug possession and drug dealing as two totally different concepts. The drug dealers who resort to deadly street violence should be dealt with severely as the criminals they are.
But we have to become willing to admit as a nation that our war against drugs has failed. And we have to start looking for other solutions. I want the drug business stopped. But I know it never will stop as long as people want the drugs. It's supply and demand. You can even get drugs in prison.

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