Decriminalization Quotes

I think people need to be educated to the fact that marijuana is not a drug. Marijuana is an herb and a flower. God put it here. If He put it here and He wants it to grow, what gives the government the right to say that God is wrong?

I think hemp is one of the greatest plants that God put in the ground, and I don't think anybody has the right to eradicate it. Just because somebody wants to get high with a joint, that's no reason to throw him in jail and take his damn belongings. He's just trying to get well. The mother - 's sick. That's why people drink beer when they come home from work. They're stressed out. That's all grass does. It's a big stress reliever.

I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my value system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal

It would be a sign of society changing if we did finally legalize prostitution. Once it's legal, it doesn't mean your daughter's going to run out and be a ho. The more we sort of bring these things into the light, you bring these hidden vices into the light, the less power they have over our society. You make it legal, it tends to go away.

There is absolutely no good reason – medical or law enforcement – that marijuana should not be legal.

Regulating and taxing marijuana would simultaneously save taxpayers billions of dollars in enforcement and incarceration costs, while providing many billions of dollars in revenue annually.

Margaret Thatcher was pro-choice. She voted to decriminalize homosexuality. Was not profoundly religious. She was very liberal on social issues.

No one's going to admit they're in favor of adulterers, although it may not be a group unfamiliar to the Senate. There have been some remarkably lecherous people in the Senate over the years.

We have decriminalized Wall Street malfeasance.

Like I said in my election manifesto - why don't they legalise the whole thing and let people like me work?

We should decriminalize all drugs. The assumptions on which our drug policies are based are flawed.

Just as the process of repealing national alcohol prohibition began with individual states repealing their own prohibition laws, so individual states must now take the initiative with respect to repealing marijuana prohibition laws.

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.

Too many Americans have lost faith in our approach to the war on drugs.

It's hard to fight the war when you've got to debate the worthiness of fighting it.

"I think decriminalization would've been a wiser first step."

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

Victimless crimes are the lifeline of the RIGHT virus. And there is a growing recognition, even in official quarters, that victimless crimes should be removed from the books or subject to minimal penalties.

Certainly our democracy is not going to fall if you legalize marijuana.

I do smoke, but I don't go through all this trouble just because I want to make my drug of choice legal. It's about personal freedom. We should have the right in this country to do what we want, if we don't hurt anybody. Seventy-two million people in this country have smoked pot. Eighteen to 20 million in the last year. These people should not be treated as criminals.

Our government has the weirdest bias against cannabis [Marijuana]. There's no reason for everybody to be so afraid of it. It's not the antichrist the DEA makes it out to be. Industrial hemp is a very useful plant. I challenged the attorney general to get rid of the criminal stigma associated with hemp so we can look at it in terms of how it might be useful. And government has no business telling us what we can and can't use for pain relief.

I don't have a problem with states experimenting with [legalizing marijuana]. I think that's the role of states

Proposition 19 already is a winner no matter what happens on election day. The mere fact of its being on the ballot has elevated and legitimized public discourse about marijuana and marijuana policy in ways I could not have imagined a year ago.

The problem is that Americans use the state as a moral compass. For libertarians, it is often frustrating to explain that advocating the decriminalization of x is not synonymous with endorsing x.

I really believe that we should treat marijuana like we treat beverage alcohol…. The War on Drugs is not working.