Michael Douglas Quotes

During my time at DEA, I saw how marijuana prohibition has done absolutely nothing to make Americans safer or healthier. It has only served to destroy millions of innocent lives, erode civil liberties, perpetuate a growing prison-industrial complex, and enrich and strengthen the most violent criminal organizations.

The war on drugs is really no war at all - it's a business!

Liquor prohibition led to the rise of organized crime in America, and drug prohibition has led to the rise of the gang problems we have now.

Who most benefits from keeping marijuana illegal? The greatest beneficiaries are the major criminal organizations in Mexico and elsewhere that earn billions of dollars annually from this illicit trade - and who would rapidly lose their competitive advantage if marijuana were a legal commodity.

When Prohibition was first enacted in 1920, most people stockpiled alcohol, thinking they'd have enough to last them for years. By 1923, that was starting to run out, so your average person started to rely more and more on criminals.

Prohibition begets proliferation

The only way to clean up Chicago is to get rid of Capone.

Our nearly century-long experiment in banning marijuana has failed as abysmally as Prohibition did... In contrast, legalizing and taxing marijuana would bring in substantial sums that could be used to pay for schools, libraries or early childhood education.

I don't think [pot] is more dangerous than alcohol.

Legalisation doesn't make sense.

After the war, Prohibition was passed, and with liquor no longer legally available the nation plunged headlong into the Great Depression.

Forty million Americans smoked marijuana; the only ones who didn’t like it were Judge Ginsberg, Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton.

I'm a recreational pot-smoker. There has never been enough of a distinction between marijuana and other drugs. It's a human rights issue, a censorship issue, and a choice issue.

I'm not guilty. You're the one that's guilty. The lawmakers, the politicians, the Colombian drug lords, all you who lobby against making drugs legal. Just like you did with alcohol during Prohibition. You're the one who's guilty. I mean, c'mon, let's kick the ballistics here: ain't no Uzi's made in Harlem. Not one of us in here owns a poppy field. This thing is bigger than Nino Brown. This is big business. This is the American way.

The War on Drugs has been an utter failure. We need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws.

I don't know what is marijuana. Perhaps I will try it when it will no longer be criminal. I will have my money for my fine and a joint in the other hand

Now everybody is mafia. You got the Russian mafia, the Mexican mafia. Everybody is mafia these days.

It's a losing proposition, but one you can't refuse. It's the politics of contraband, it's the smuggler's blues.

I wouldn't answer the marijuana questions. You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried.

To make marijuana against the law is like saying God made a big mistake.

I'd like to see the government back a programme of research into the medical properties of cannabis and I do not object to its responsible use as a recreational relaxant.

We've legalized marijuana recently. Medical marijuana, but the rest will come.

Some call it bootlegging. Some call it racketeering. I call it a business.

Just see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil

People have forgotten the effects of prohibition. We have become the United Statesof Amnesia.