Liberty MavenPot legalization is “on the table” says Jim Webb
April 24th, 2009 1:36 am | by Marc Gallagher | Published in Big Government, Civil Liberties, Drugs, law, Liberty, Maven Commentary | 3 Responses
There are reasons to like Senator Jim Webb. One of them are his recent statements regarding the legalization of marijuana as an option for helping to reform the criminal justice system.
The leader of a congressional effort to reform the criminal justice system said Thursday that all issues — including drug legalization — need to be on the table.
Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), who has made criminal justice and prison reform a signature issue of his this year in Congress, is the most high-profile lawmaker to indicate openness to drug decriminalization or outright legalization.
“Well, I think what we need to do is to put all of the issues on the table,” Webb said this morning on CNN if asked if marijuana legalization would be part of his criminal justice reform efforts.
“If you go back to 1980 as a starting point, I think we had 40,000 people in prison on drug charges, and today, we have about 500,000 of them,” the first-term Virginia lawmaker said. “And the great majority of those are nonviolent crimes — possession crimes or minor sales.”
Well, this all sounded great until I read the following:
“I think they should examine every aspect of drugs policy to see what’s working and what’s not working, and where the consistencies are and, quite frankly, where the inconsistencies are in terms of how people end up in the system with similar activities,” Webb explained, reiterating his call for a high-level blue ribbon commission to reform the criminal justice system.
Oh no! Not yet another “blue ribbon commission”! That is a Capitol Hill euphemism for a “political dog and pony show”. In the end nothing gets accomplished. I hope this one is different, but I have my doubts.
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April 25th, 2009 at 9:07 pm (#)
What are you talking about? The last presidential blue-ribbon commission on drug policy reported under President Nixon, after reviewing all the research, that marijuana should be legalized. It's just a shame that President Nixon was a hippy-hating crook who, as we now know from released recordings, conflated his anti-semitic views with the marijuana legalization movement.
April 26th, 2009 at 5:15 pm (#)
Did we not learn anything from alcohol prohibition?
Marijuana prohibition has been an indisputable failure. Legalize it and take the money out of the black market. Marijuana is less dangerous than either alcohol or tobacco yet both of those substances are legal (and should be). Every year our prison system releases violent offenders to make room for non-violent pot smokers. That is just plain insanity. Think of how better society would be served if our law enforcement efforts were directed more towards dealing with violent individuals. We would also save millions of dollars on prosecution costs and jail expenses.
There is also substantial evidence indicating marijuana has numerous medical uses as well.
This is a plant, legalize it and regulate it. We need to look at this issue using nothing more than basic common sense. Isn't it time to drop the "Reefer Madness" stupidity?
December 2nd, 2011 at 3:19 pm (#)
whether you like marijuana or not, as long as we have people in office that has differant veiws on this subject, the laws will stay the same. I say tear the Government down and rebuild with the United States Contitution in mind. And stop all the bull**** from ever happening again.