Gary Johnson Quotes

Incarcerating people for their [drug] consumption choices has the consistency of arresting a survivor of suicide for attempted murder.

The consumption of drugs could be legalized, not penalized.

Once brave politicians and others explain the war on drugs' true cost, the American people will scream for a cease-fire. Bring the troops home, people will urge. Treat drugs as a health problem, not as a matter for the criminal justice system.

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

Until we do something about demand, Latin America will never be able to solve the drug problem on its own.

Agitating the community and increasingly forcing itself upon our attention is the narcotic drug evil. I am convinced that part of the agitation on this subject is due to the sensationalism of certain types of newspapers and magazines. Lurid, sensational articles, intended to inflame the imagination of young people and to make the whole subject mysteriously and morbidly attractive, have led to the prevalence of a belief that the use of narcotic drugs is much more general than it really is.

Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use.

The war on drugs has failed. Its failure has been so categorical and self-evident that the statement itself is bromidic. By any reasonable metric of success—addiction rates, violence, the availability of drugs in our schools— it’s clear that our 40-year jihad against certain plants and chemicals has done far more harm than good.

I can tell you that the formula works, and works pretty well. You avoid criminals and violence, you refuse their mode of money that nourishes the cartels, and that is a great solution to the violence problem. In relation to the health problem, I have not ever heard of anybody dying from an overdose of marijuana.

Casual drug users should be taken out and shot.

If its not worth spending everything it takes, it's not a war [on drugs].

We need to prioritize our law enforcement efforts, and if somebody's gonna smoke a joint in their house and not do anybody else any harm, then perhaps there are other things that our cops should be looking at to engage in and try to clean up some of the other problems that we have in society that are appropriate for law enforcement to do.”

The problem of drugs is a national failure. We do not grow cocoa leaves in Albany.

I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol. I've never used marijuana and I don't intend to, but it's just one of those things that I think: this war on drugs just hasn't succeeded.

If drugs are bad, any respectable society should do something to deal with them.

Anyone who advocates pill testing is giving the green light to drugs. That is absolutely unacceptable.

I've never been into artists promoting drugs.

We're already going down that path with illegal drug use and incarceration. I can't imagine it getting any worse.

The War on Drugs employs millions - politicians, bureaucrats, policemen, and now the military - that probably couldn't find a place for their dubious talents in a free market, unless they were to sell pencils from a tin cup on street corners.

We have not yet concluded that needle-exchange programs do not encourage drug use.

I always thought a very strong anti-drug policy was a good thing for my union members.

The war on drugs is wrong, both tactically and morally. It assumes that people are too stupid, too reckless, and too irresponsible to decide whether and under what conditions to consume drugs. The war on drugs is morally bankrupt.

I'm sad to see the passing of the great drug warriors. I certainly did my part in that battle and I don't regret any of it.

To put someone in jail for using drugs in the privacy of his hotel room is just barbaric.

I just think it's shocking how many of these young people wind up in prison and they get turned into hardcore criminals because they had a possession of a very small amount of controlled substance.