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In what is perhaps the clearest and most persuasive video that the Gary Johnson for President campaign has released, the Libertarian nominee explains in simple terms why the war on drugs has failed. The drug issue is an excellent hook to use when reacting out to disaffected Democrats, and a perfect way to distinguish Johnson from the Ron Paul crowd’s cultural conservatism.
Johnson has talked openly about using medical marijuana following an accident several years ago. His running mate, former Judge Jim Gray, has made the drug issue a central piece of his personal platform over the years.
As a tagline for the brilliant video, Johnson proposes that he will win the war on drugs by ending it. Watch below…
Some simple facts:
* Prohibition has been a slow but relentless degradation (death by a zillion cuts) of all our cherished national institutions, that will leave us crippled for numerous generations.
* The US federal government is now the most dangerous and corrupt corporation on the planet.
* In 1989, ‘The Kerry Committee’ found that the United States Department of State had made payments to drug traffickers. Concluding, that even members of the U.S. State Department, themselves, were involved in drug trafficking. Some of the payments were made even after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies – or even while these traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies.
* Colombia, Peru, Mexico or Afghanistan with their coca leaves, marijuana buds or poppy sap are not igniting temptation in the minds of our weak, innocent citizens. These countries are duly responding to the enormous demand that comes from within our own borders. Invading or destroying these countries, thus creating more hate, violence, instability, injustice and corruption, will not fix our problem.
* A rather large majority of people will always feel the need to use drugs such as heroin, opium, nicotine, amphetamines, alcohol, sugar, or caffeine.
* The massive majority of adults who use drugs do so recreationally – getting high at the weekend then up for work on a Monday morning.
* Apart from the huge percentage of people addicted to both sugar and caffeine, a small minority of adults (nearly 5%) will always experience the use of drugs as problematic. – approx. 3% are dependent on alcohol and approx. 1.5% are dependent on other drugs such as methamphetamine, cocaine, heroine etc.
* Just as it was impossible to prevent alcohol from being produced and used in the U.S. in the 1920s, so too, it is equally impossible to prevent any of the aforementioned drugs from being produced, distributed and widely used by those who so desire.
* Prohibition kills more people and ruins more lives than the drugs it prohibits.
* Due to Prohibition (historically proven to be an utter failure at every level), the availability of most of these mood-altering drugs has become so universal and unfettered that in any city of the civilized world, any one of us would be able to procure practically any drug we wish within an hour.
* Throughout history, the prohibition of any mind-altering substance has always exploded usage rates, overcrowded jails, fueled organized crime, created rampant corruption of law-enforcement – even whole governments, while inducing an incalculable amount of suffering and death.
* The CIA was/is running Heroin from Vietnam, Southeast Asia and Afghanistan, and moving Cocaine from Central America. This has been well documented. – by the 1989 Kerry Committee, as well as academic researchers such as Alfred McCoy and Peter Dale Scott, and the late Gary Webb.
* It’s not even possible to keep drugs out of prisons, but prohibitionists wish to waste trillions of dollars in an utterly futile attempt to keep them off our streets.
* The United States jails a larger percentage of it’s own citizens than any other country in the world, including those run by the worst totalitarian regimes, yet it has far higher use/addiction rates than most other countries.