Drug Laws Quotes

Strict gun laws are about as effective as strict drug laws...It pains me to say this, but the NRA seems to be right: The cities and states that have the toughest gun laws have the most murder and mayhem.

At the end of the day, my hope is that when the new Medicare- Prescription Drug Law gets up and fully running a lot more seniors will pay a whole lot less than they do today for their much-needed medications.

Laws against things like drugs are inhumane, and create an inhumane society and inhumane law enforcement. I know whats causing violence in America - the damn drug laws.

In the "Personal Story" segment tonight, the state of Oregon is extremely liberal in its state government and judicial system.That state has lenient drug laws, including wide access to medical marijuana.

One of the things that has happened is that our drug laws have been institutionalized now. If you want to say that somebody's a bad person in a movie or in a television show or something about that, you say they sell drugs or they use drugs.

It's the new slavery. It came out of the drug laws and it really is something we're going to have to confront, but I don't see enough people up in arms about that. We need to be.

The thing about our drug laws is that they're not based on science.

I think our drug laws need to be made scientifically, as best as possible, recognizing that values will always be part of that.

Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind.

America didn't have a drug problem before it passed drug laws. While drugs were consumed by large numbers of people — the number of women habituated to the opium found in laudanum was, no pun intended, staggering — they were, for the most part, easily able to live their lives, do their jobs, and raise their families pretty much the way we do today.

Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves.

Repealing drug laws would remove the risks involved with producing and distributing drugs, bringing 'street prices' crashing down (it's estimated that a 'spoon' of heroin would cost about a quarter in the free market), thereby eradicating any incentive that criminals might have to compete with legitimate businesses, and greatly reducing if not eliminating altogether any economic reason to 'push' drugs on children.

You wanna get rid of drug crime in this country? Fine, let's just get rid of all the drug laws.

Most Americans violate drug laws in their lifetime, but the enemy in this war has been racially defined. Not by accident, the drug war has been waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color, even though studies have consistently shown - for decades - the people of color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than whites.

I guess nobody assumes anybody is a libertarian. It's a more complex political discussion than most people are used to, to explain why you think the way you do about public education or drug laws, and why it's not as simple as being for or against something.

It's going to have to come to a point where politicians in their own political self-interest think it's safe and advantageous to come out on the side of drug law reform. Right now, they don't care about drug safety. They just care about their standing with the electorate.

A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this.

Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marijuana in private for personal use... Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce [28g] of marijuana.

Federal and state laws (should) be changed to no longer make it a crime to possess marijuana for private use.

You got a million drug laws now because the bosses figured there was more money in putting people in jail than taxing something anyone can grow on a window sill.

What mostly prevents black people from voting is that drug laws send them to prison, and then they can't vote.

We should not have drug laws or a court system that disproportionately punishes the black community.

I know that sounds really extreme, but if you just look at the history, you will find Harry Anslinger [first U.S. commissioner of the Bureau of Narcotics] going on about satanic swing and how reefer will make black people think they're as good as white people - which to him, obviously, was a very horrible outcome. This is the basis of our drug laws.

Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.

Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself

Individual freedom and drug laws contradict each other. In a genuinely free society, people are free to ingest whatever they want to ingest, no matter how harmful or destructive. What people ingest is none of the government's business. If drug users or drug addicts wish to get help, a free society provides the means to do so.

I've never had a problem with drugs. I've had problems with the police.

Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.

If people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.