One might ask why tobacco is legal and marijuana not. A possible answer is suggested by the nature of the crop.
Very commonly substances are criminalized because they're associated with what's called the dangerous classes, you know, poor people, or working people.... Actually, the peak of marijuana use was as I said, in the seventies, but that was rich kids, so you don't throw them in jail. And then it got seriously criminalized, you know, you really throw people in jail for it, when it was poor people.
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 think Jefferson and George Washington would strongly discourage you from growing marijuana, and their tactics to stop you would be more violent than they would be today.
The major basis for my opposition to marijuana prohibition has not been how badly it's worked, the fact that it's produced much more harm than good - it has been primarily a moral reason: I don't think the state has any more right to tell me what to put into my mouth than it has to tell me what can come out of my mouth.
Thousands of years people have taken drugs, whether it's alcohol, which was invented about 5,000 years ago. People have been using that. And all kinds of marijuana and all these things, tobacco. So all these drugs have been - it seems to be the propensity of human beings to want to use them.
In the 1990s - the period of the greatest escalation of the drug war - nearly 80 percent of the increase in drug arrests was for marijuana possession, a drug less harmful than alcohol or tobacco and at least, if not more, prevalent in middle class white neighborhoods and college campuses as it is in the 'hood.
'Cause I was already a smoker, it was easy to get addicted. The one thing that they don't teach you about marijuana is how addictive it is.
I don’t think it’s that controversial. I’m really in favor of legalizing marijuana. I thought people would be more offended by [this series] than they are. I’m surprised they weren’t.
Yes. And release prisoners who are incarcerated for pot.
Never have so many been so high so often. When a Boston research group decided to compare the effects of marijuana on experienced and inexperienced users, it took them two months to line up nine student subjects who had never used marijuana.
We absolutely should legalize marijuana.
Marijuana is not not harmful, but is the least harmful psychoactive substance that we have, with the possible exception of caffeine.
Look at any black-and-white movie; everybody is smoking.
Once you are hooked, smoking is harder to quit then heroin.
Smoking is related to practically every terrible thing that can happen to you.
James also revealed he and his teammates smoked marijuana one night after getting access to a hotel room in Akron.
The main point in our report was to recommend decriminalization...because of the way laws are applied, which have not worked. We have applied them for decades and it's got the prisons filled with lots of young people who sometimes come out destroyed for having half an ounce... We should approach it through education and health issues rather than a brutal reaction... There is need for change in policy, but it has to start with debate and discussion... I think the whole approach has to be reviewed.
I don't think young black men, or anybody, should get a criminal record for low-level use. You know, I don't think that we should spend our law enforcement time jailing or imprisoning marijuana users. But to solve that problem, you don't need to go to the other extreme of creating Big Tobacco 2.0.
Make no mistake about it: Legalization is not about, you know, Cheech & Chong smoking marijuana or, you know, a Grateful Dead concert; it's about creating the next Marlboro of our time, the next Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds, the Big Tobacco all over again.
I don't think young black men, or anybody, should get a criminal record for low-level use. You know, I don't think that we should spend our law enforcement time jailing or imprisoning marijuana users. But to solve that problem, you don't need to go to the other extreme of creating Big Tobacco 2.0. Make no mistake about it: Legalization is not about, you know, Cheech & Chong smoking marijuana or, you know, a Grateful Dead concert; it's about creating the next Marlboro of our time, the next Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds, the Big Tobacco all over again.
Marijuana is not tested for, and yet that is the big thing guys are getting in trouble with in the league. It's terrible
I don't think marijuana should be illegal.
A tidal wave of support for medicinal marijuana has begun in the western United States; the future of many federal officials depends, in large part, on whether they ride that wave into the future or, standing in the way, are rendered irrelevant by the voters.
I think it's the snack food industry that's really pushing the marijuana legalization issue in California.
