Ali Khamenei Quotes
It is haram [religiously forbidden] to use narcotics in any way because it results in considerable adverse effects in terms of personal health and social cost. By the same token, it is haram to deal in narcotics in any way, i.e., carrying, transporting, storing, selling, buying, etc.
Khamenei, Ali. Practical Laws of Islam. Islamic Book Inc., 2016.
The "Formula" was to legalize all drugs, This would break the Drug Cartels and the power they held in Mexico, The money that could be saved from the failing drug law enforcement could be spsent on substance abuse prevention and treatment. He also felt that government should not intude on personal life style and health decisions. He was particularly intent on legalizing marijuana which unlike alcohol and other illicit drugs does not cause death.
It is not clear whether Fish actually believed what he was saying or was using extreme hyperbole for the purposes of passing an act he favored. This type of statement made by otherwise respectable government officials has developed a view on the part of many Americans that the Government lies about marijuana. See {593333} and {593334} for other examples.
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.”
Actually, The Surgeon General has explained that alcohol has been the most violence-inducing drug. There is no evidence whatsoever that marijuana causes violence.
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.
Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei is a Twelver Shia Marja' and the second and current supreme leader of Iran, in office since 1989. He was previously President of Iran from 1981 to 1989. Khamenei is the longest serving head of state in the Middle East, as well as the second-longest serving Iranian leader of the last century, after Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
