Bill Maher Quotes
Do you want to know why marijuana is illegal? Because the drug companies want marijuana to be illegal. You see, if it came down to Prozak versus Marijuana, Prozak would lose.
Maher, Bill. Real Time with Bill Maher. HBO.
The DEA is the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Although only a minority of Americans advocated legalization of Marijuana at the time, Nixon brought his notorious anti-Semitic point of view to bear on a situation where the overwhelming majority of Marijuana legalizers were Christian. There were Jews as well – in particular some prominent Jews such as Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Milton Friedman who recommended against marijuana use, but argued against government making it illegal. This was a position held by most Libertarians, many liberals, and many conservatives like Friedman.
Marijuana was and still is a health and social problem in that people who tend to use it---especially young people---tend not to focus on their friendships, their work and study obligations, their own development and welfare. However it is nowhere near the degree of deleterious problems of alcohol and other drugs like heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine. There is no record of anyone dying from an over dose or marijuana while alcohol and other drugs kill hundreds if not thousands a year. But none of those health emergencies compare with the flu which each year kills over 20,000 Americans who do not get inoculations or highway crashes which kill about 50,000. Yet Nixon did not characterize these as “national emergencies.”
President Barack Obama had the week before, made a speech observing the fact that marijuana was less dangerous then alcohol.
Perry was an extreme right wing law and order conservative, but like many extreme rightists had a streak of libertatrianism.
He was also a paid lobbyist for the beer industry.
There are great differences in the law enforcement policies throughout the country. Even when marijuana was illegal in every state, there were gret differences in the vigor with which this illegality was enforced. And local cities, towns and counties also are different. In the case of Pueblo marijuana was illegal in his childhood but the local authorities chose not to enforce those laws. Even within the same city or town there are often differential enforcement policies for different neighborhoods very ften. Also some communities have a strong libertarian viewpoint and there has been a reluctance to enforce lws relating to personal life choices.
William Maher is an American comedian, political commentator, and television host. He is known for the HBO political talk show Real Time with Bill Maher (2003–present) and the similar late-night show called Politically Incorrect (1993–2002), originally on Comedy Central and later on ABC.
