James Gray Quotes
There is absolutely no difference between alcohol prohibition and drug prohibition except the drug being prohibited.
James Gray, California State Judge, C-SPAN Book TV, August 26, 2001
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
That was certainly true at that time in the United States. Marijuana was illegal, but alcohol and nicotine—cigarettes—were legal. Yet, over 350,000 deaths a year were caused by nicotine, over 100,000 alcohol related death the epidemiologists had found. But the number of marijuana caused death was just a handful, although there were hunreds of deaths of drug dealers fighting for territory, Nicotine an alcohol science had proved was addicting. Not so for marijuana which for some people was habituating, but marijuana never met the scientific criteria for addiction.
Friedman was an advocate for the legalization of illicit drugs, claiming that the harm that is done by making drugs illegal is greater than that which would occur if drugs were legalized. He also observed that alcohol kills times the number of Americans than does illegal drugs and tobacco kills four times as many as alcohol.
Cixi had issued a 10 point edict designed to end opium use in China. One of its most interesting elements was that it only applied to Chinese under the age of 60. She recognized that for those elderly people who are thoroughly addicted to opium, prohibition would be to radical a change and their life expectancy was not very long. At the time, the average lifespan of Chinese was under 50.
This was a great surprise to most conservatives who assumed that Robertson, a major conservative leader and ordained minister would be opposed to drug legalization.
He was the first Chinese official to make opium illegal. However, British many merchants were involved in a complicated trade scheme whereby they brought opium to Canton. They paid not attention to the new laws against opium the same as their Chinese customers. Lin Zexu, perceiving Queen Victoria to have powers equivalent to the Chinese Emperor who could do anything in China, He assumed that the Queen could and would control the merchant’s behavior, and before punishing the British merchants, he was putting the Queen on notice. There is no record of what Victoria did, if anything. When Lin Zexu tried to enforce his ban on opium, the British Merchants resisted and the First Opium War broke out between China and Britainin which the Chinese were humiliated and resent to this day. A bronze statue of Lin Zexu was erected in his honor in Chatham Square (Kimlau Square) of New York City's Chinatown.
He was also a paid lobbyist for the beer industry.
James Gray is an American film director and screenwriter. Since his feature debut Little Odessa in 1994, he has made six other features, four of which competed for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
