Quotes
“The tendency in many parts of the world to stigmatize and incarcerate drug users has prevented many from seeking medical treatment. In what other areas of public health do we criminalize patients in need of help?”
- Kofi Annan, United Nations' Secretary-General 1997-2006, 2001 Nobel Peace Prize recipient and former member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, 2016 Feb 22 * *
“The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”
- Aldous Huxley, writer, philosopher, in "Words and Behaviour," The Olive Tree (1936) (source 1, 2)
“The War on Drugs approach has failed and we are ready to raise our voices and find a new strategy... Ultimately this is a choice between control by governments or by gangsters; there is no third option in which drug markets can be made to disappear.”
- Fernando Henrique Cardoso, President of Brazil 1995-2002, member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, from his essay "Latin America: We Have Counted the Costs, Now We Are Ready for Change" in Ending the War on Drugs (2016, pg. 101,105)
“When law enforcement officers call for drugs to be legalised, we have to listen. So too when doctors speak up. Last month the Royal College of Physicians took the important step of coming out in favour of decriminalisation, joining the BMA (British Medical Association), the Faculty of Public Health, and the Royal Society of Public Health in supporting drug policy reform.
“This is not about whether you think drugs are good or bad. It is an evidence based position entirely in line with the public health approach to violent crime.
“The BMJ (British Medical Journal) is firmly behind efforts to legalise, regulate, and tax the sale of drugs for recreational and medicinal use. This is an issue on which doctors can and should make their voices heard.”
- Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of The British Medical Journal, in her editorial "Drugs should be legalised, regulated, and taxed," 2018 May 10 (PDF)
“When we were Presidents of Nigeria and South Africa – the largest economies on the continent – our Administrations dreamt of many things. One in particular was to create drug-free societies.
“We were wrong. We were wrong because we thought prohibition, repression, and prison would protect our children. We allowed harsh penalties for drug-related offenses, including the non-violent ones. We legitimised State forces when they arrested and punished many citizens, even when, in retrospect, that was excessive. It didn’t work.”
- Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of Nigeria (1999 to 2007) & Kgalema Motlanthe, former President of South Africa (2008 to 2009), members of Global Commission on Drug Policy, in article "Drugs: Let’s Admit We Were Wrong"
“Individuals who use drugs do not forfeit their human rights. Too often, drug users suffer discrimination, are forced to accept treatment, marginalized and often harmed by approaches which over-emphasize criminalization and punishment while under-emphasizing harm reduction and respect for human rights.”
- Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights 2008-14, speaking ahead of the meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, 2009 March 10 (PDF, PDF2)
“I am pleased to address you today, to use this opportunity to encourage a shift of focus in tackling the world drug problem – a shift from an approach primarily based on law enforcement to one that, first and foremost, focuses on the human rights of drug users.
“People do not lose their human rights because they use drugs. I put to you that they have the same rights as all of us: to health and to life, to non-discrimination, to freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention, and to freedom from torture and other forms of ill treatment.”
- Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, at the U.N. Work on the World Drug Problem, 2015 Nov 20 (PDF)
“That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant... The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”
- John Stuart Mill, philosopher, political economist, in his introduction to On Liberty (1859) (pg 18, source2, PDF edited for clarity)
“The great paradox of Prohibition is that once it was repealed, it became harder for Americans to acquire alcohol. During the dry years, illegal operators needed only to bribe a cop or two, and then open their establishments to all comers, at any time of day; if a 14-year-old wanted to score a bottle of rye on his way to school at 8 a.m., there were plenty of people ready to sell it to him. Along came Repeal, and suddenly a new regime of regulations -- age limits, closing hours, geographic proscriptions -- made that bottle a lot harder to come by.”
- Daniel Okrent, author of Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition (2010), from his article "The Paradox of Prohibition"
“In Chicago in the early '70s the best heroin you could get was 2% pure, black tar. Now after forty years of drug war: 90% pure heroin. Kids are buying it, nickel and dime bags, and having parties. It's so pure you don't need to use a needle. So, ironically, prohibition is the most effective way to put more drugs, uncontrolled and unregulated, everywhere.”
- Jim Gierach, former Assistant State's Attorney of Cook County, IL., U.S.A., member of Law Enforcement Action Partnership (video interview at 2:45)
“I would like to see total legalization of all drugs, which will cure about 80% of our crime and violence issues. Won't do anything for our drug problem, because that's a separate issue, and I believe that's a medical and a social issue that's best handled through education and treatment instead of arrest and incarceration.”
- Terry Nelson, Republican, three decades in U.S. law enforcement including Border Patrol, Customs, Dept. Homeland Security, now a member of Law Enforcement Action Partnership (video interview at 17:44, video transcript)
“Alcohol, drunkenness, in the 19th century, was, and is, a terrific social problem. It is the obligation of a caring society to try to figure out what to do, so there were lots of different groups that wanted to do something about it: progressives as well as conservatives, the single-issue Anti-Saloon League, the International Workers of the World, the industrialists, the Ku Klux Klan, and the NAACP... They always thought it was prohibition for somebody else.”
- Ken Burns, in an interview (at 4:40) about his documentary series Prohibition (2011)
“The war on drugs is an abject and dismal failure. The punitive, damaging responses to injecting drug users are grotesque and horrendous. The situation in the Russian Federation is beyond the capacity of the mind to absorb a government that is so perfidious and ugly in its behaviour to injecting drug use – the violations of human rights on every front. And we all know as well, and it's unassailable, irrefutable, it's there statistically documented: that harm reduction programs work, and they work to the benefit of all, including the entire society.”
- Stephen Lewis, co-founder and co-director of AIDS-Free World, former UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, Distinguished Visiting Professor at Ryerson University, in a speech given at the at the 19th International AIDS Conference (2012 July 23) (in podcast at 8:08, MP3, video at 6:00)
“It is unconscionable to jail sick people. It is a national disgrace that we do so.”
- Norm Stamper, Ph.D., 34 years as a police officer (Ret.), Seattle's Chief of Police 1994-2000, writer, advisory board member of Law Enforcement Action Partnership (in TED Talk at 12:35)
“We are Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, and what we mean by that term is the prohibiting of consensual adult behavior. When you take activities that consenting adults wish to do with each other and you make that activity illegal you create crime in your society. If there is a monetary aspect to that activity, you create violence in your society. Because if there's a dispute over money and there's no way to settle it in the courts, then it gets settled on the streets.
“Legalization of drugs is not to be considered as the answer to our drug problem. Legalization of drugs is a far better approach to our crime and violence problem that we have now.”
- Captain Peter Christ (Ret.) of the Tonawanda, NY Police Department and co-founder of LEAP (in interview 6:40)
“We have to take a pragmatic approach, and custody is not the right place for vulnerable people at risk of harm. They need wraparound, holistic support. You can’t arrest your way out of record drug-related deaths.”
- Chief Inspector Jason Kew of Thames Valley police, in article.
“Legalizing drugs would simultaneously reduce the amount of crime and raise the quality of law enforcement. Can you conceive of any other measure that would accomplish so much to promote law and order? ...So long as large sums of money are involved - and they are bound to be if drugs are illegal - it is literally impossible to stop the traffic, or even to make a serious reduction in its scope.”
- Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize winning economist in Newsweek, 1972 May 1
“Until we are all free, we are none of us free... we ignore and repudiate our unhappy brethren as having no part or share in their misfortunes- until the cup of anguish is held also to our own lips.”
- Emma Lazarus, author, poet, and activist, in 1883
“I think as an adult, you should be free to grow anything you want on your own property as long as you're not taking it other places. The idea that the government can tell you what you can grow in your garden, strikes me in a visceral way as wrong. Our right to privacy should include that.
“The kind of seeds that you choose to plant in your garden could result in the complete loss of your house and your property. And you don't even have to plant it [opium, cannabis]; someone else could plant it on your property. They don't even have to tie the plant to you to seek forfeiture of the asset. So a stranger could plant it, or your kid could plant it, and you could lose your house.”
- Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and The Botany of Desire, from interview featured in The Pot Book (2010, editor Julie Holland)
“It is generally forgotten that our guarantees of religious freedom were designed to protect precisely those who were not members of established denominations, but rather such (then) screwball and subversive individuals as Quakers, Shakers, Levellers, and Anabaptists.”
- Alan Watts, philosopher, author, and speaker, from “Psychedelics and Religious Experience” in California Law Review vol.56(1), 1968, p84-85 (PDF, web, web2)
“The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) opposes criminal prohibition of drugs. Not only is prohibition a proven failure as a drug control strategy, but it subjects otherwise law-abiding citizens to arrest, prosecution and imprisonment for what they do in private. In trying to enforce the drug laws, the government violates the fundamental rights of privacy and personal autonomy that are guaranteed by our Constitution. The ACLU believes that unless they do harm to others, people should not be punished -- even if they do harm to themselves. There are better ways to control drug use, ways that will ultimately lead to a healthier, freer and less crime-ridden society.”
- ACLU Position Paper
“The long federal experiment in prohibition of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and other drugs has given us crime and corruption combined with a manifest failure to stop the use of drugs or reduce their availability to children...
“Repeal of prohibition would take the astronomical profits out of the drug business and destroy the drug kingpins who terrorize parts of our cities. It would reduce crime even more dramatically than did the repeal of alcohol prohibition. Not only would there be less crime: reform would also free federal agents to concentrate on terrorism and espionage and would free local police agents to concentrate on robbery, burglary, and violent crime.”
- The CATO Institute, in the CATO Handbook for Policymakers 8th edition, 2017 (PDF)
“I have a prescription for marijuana in Los Angeles. It's for anxiety, primarily anxiety about getting arrested for marijuana.”
- T.J. Miller, actor, standup comic in T.J. Miller: No Real Reason (2011) (youtube video, at 39:00)
“In a free society, how can you commit a crime against yourself?”
- Jesse Ventura, naval veteran, former pro wrestler, actor, author, U.S. Governor of Minnesota 1999-2003 *1 *2
“Drugs pervade our society, abuse of them is rampant, and the authorities keep doing what they have always done, even though policies of eradicating drug plants, sealing borders, and zero tolerance for users have done nothing but made matters worse...
“Drugs are here to stay. History teaches that it is vain to hope that drugs will ever disappear and that any effort to eliminate them from society is doomed to failure.
“Throughout the twentieth century, Western society attempted to deal with its drug problems through negative actions: by various wars on drug abuse implemented by repressive laws, disinformation, outrageous propaganda, and attacks on users, suppliers, and sources of disapproved substances. These wars have been consistently lost. More people are taking more drugs now than ever before. Drug use has invaded all classes and ethnic groups and has spread to younger and younger children. Also, more people abuse drugs now than ever before, and the drug laws are directly responsible for creating ugly and ever-widening criminal networks that corrupt society and cause far worse damage than the substances they distribute.”
- Andrew Weil, M.D. and Winifred Rosen, in From Chocolate to Morphine: Everything You Need To Know About Mind-Altering Drugs, 2004, preface-pg.1
“No one should be stigmatized or discriminated against because of their dependence on drugs.”
- Ban Ki Moon, UN Secretary-General 2007-2016, in his message for the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, 2008 June 23
“As far as the dominating culture, the pharmaceutical-industrial-government complex, it’s not that they don’t want you to be drugs. They want you to be on drugs. They just want you to be on corporate drugs. The corporate-government approach is: if we can’t patent it, let’s prohibit it. All you do by banning these things preemptively is you create a black market, you create an opportunity for somebody to get very rich by dealing in what is now a prohibited substance, and you motivate intrepid psychonaunts to experiment even more.”
- Dennis McKenna, ethnopharmacologist & research pharmacognosist, in the documentary Neurons to Nirvana: Understanding Psychedelic Medicines (2013), at 54:00 (watch on tubi)
“It's a war against people who try just to earn their living growing some plant. They would like to grow something else if they would receive the same money. So I mean, you cannot make a war against drugs without knowing that doing so you are making a war against people.”
- Ruth Dreifuss, President of the Swiss Confederation 1999 and member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, featured in the documentary Breaking the Taboo (2012, at 7:52, source 1, 2 , 3)
“The government has as much right to control what I as an adult put into my body as it does what I put into my mind. It's none of their business.”
- James Gray, former judge, from Cannabis Reporter Radio Show Podcast, in interview at 34:39
“To say that the 'war on drugs' is a war on drugs - on the pills and powders and plants - is like saying that book burnings and censorships are attacks on paper and ink, when actually it is the ideas of the writers that are under attack - that are being suppressed. The so-called 'war on drugs' is a religious war, a war on how we are permitted to perceive reality, a war on consciousness itself. A war on what kinds of thinking and awareness are to be tolerated by the dominant power and what types of thinking and awareness are to be destroyed, by whatever means possible.”
- Richard Glen Boire, from his essay Cognitive Liberty in The Politics of Psychopharmacology (1998, 2002), pg.126
“The War on Drugs is ineffective at limiting access to dangerous drugs and, instead, empowers dangerous gangs that make incredible fortunes on the black market for these illegal drugs.
“The War on Drugs has imprisoned millions of non-violent people. This is unfair to these people and also uses up resources that would be better spent prosecuting and imprisoning people who are violent.
“The War on Drugs is largely responsible for the militarization of police forces in America. It has pitted police against citizens and this is unfair to both. Police need to be able to focus on protecting the American public from violent offenders and fraud.
“Lastly, Libertarians believe that it is immoral for the government to dictate which substances a person is permitted to consume, whether it is alcohol, tobacco, herbal remedies, saturated fat, marijuana, etc. These decisions belong to individual people, not the government.
“Because of all of these things, Libertarians advocate ending the War on Drugs.”
- U.S. Libertarian Party position statement
“The first casualty of war is truth.”
- said by many in different ways since at least 1915 (source)
“The first casualty when war comes is truth, and whenever there is a war, and whenever an individual nation seeks to coerce by force of arms another, it always acts and always insists that it acts under self-defense.”
- Hiram W Johnson, U.S. Senator to the Senate, 1929 (source)
“It is never beneficial to a nation to have a military operation continue for a long time.”
- Sun Tzu, in The Art of War (source)
“And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammerblows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken.
“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.”
- John Steinbeck, author, in East of Eden, p.131 (source)
“Filling the jails with people for drug offenses is not an indicator of success but instead is a sign of our failure to effectively deal with the problem.”
- Howard Rahtz, retired Commander in the Cincinnati Police Dept., speaker for Law Enforcement Action Partnership, writer, in his book Drugs, Crime and Violence: From Trafficking to Treatment (2012), pg. 45
“We make kids pee in a jar so we can determine what they are taking. Students who then test positive for some substance or another are often barred from participating in sports and other extracurricular activities. Those are the things that have shown, study after study, to be the most effective deterrents for drug use, [and] we are now barring students from participating.”
- Lynn Lyman, former California State Director for the Drug Policy Alliance, at a public hearing regarding the Temecula Valley Unified School District undercover sting operation that targeted special education students, 2013 August 12 (at 2:45)
“A red flag should go up for you anytime a person in a position of responsibility utters the words ‘zero tolerance,’ because that means they do not have the confidence to make a decision in their discipline, they do not have the compassion to see differences between situations, and they do not have the administrative or managerial skills to make the kind of decisions that create a thriving institution.”
- Stephen Downing, Deputy Chief of the L.A.P.D. (Ret.), Board member of Law Enforcement Action Partnership, at a public hearing regarding the Temecula Valley Unified School District undercover sting operation that targeted special education students, 2013 August 12
“You can get over an addiction, but you can never get over a conviction.
“Young people went to jail as a result of what I did. People that never committed another crime ended up with their lives ruined, and that bothers me.
“Right now, the drug lords, murderers, and terrorists out there are the ones who regulate drugs in this country. Government regulation is the only way to go, and that will only occur with legalization.”
- Jack Cole, 26 years with the New Jersey State Police, 14 years as an undercover narcotics officer, co-founder of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition *1 *2 *3
“This book covers the subject of opium from the earliest historical references to the present time. The recent discovery of opium receptors in the brain, and the body's own painkiller endorphin, suggests that there is a preaddiction metabolism related to endorphin deficiency. The addict needs to supplement a vital substance insufficiently produced in his body much as the diabetic needs insulin. So the absurdity of penalizing a metabolic deficiency is now manifest. The writers are careful not to take sides. By simply presenting the evidence, they demonstrate the futility and wasteful folly of the police and jail approach to addiction.
“'Those who are ignorant of the past will suffer its repetition.'
“Prohibition did not stop people from drinking, but it did deliver this country into the hands of organized crime. Undeterred by the dismal and expensive failure of Prohibition, reformers are still trying to legislate narcotics out of existence. The predictable result is thousands of addicts, a huge uncontrollable black market, and casualties from overdoses, hepatitis, infections, and poisonous street dope. And the attempt to enforce these unenforceable laws is costing the taxpayer billions of dollars. Methadone maintenance was the first glimmer of sanity in the antidrug hysteria that gripped America in the fifties and sixties under the able propagandizing of Harry Anslinger. And still newspaper editorials cite the growing number of addicts as reason for continuing with measures as unsuccessful as they are expensive. The are citing the failure of drug laws as reason to continue and amplify such laws. If something doesn't work why go on doing it? Flowers in the Blood provides a fascinating documentation for a sane approach to opium and opiates.”
- William S. Burroughs, writer, from his introduction to Latimer & Goldberg's Flowers in the Blood: The Story of Opium (1981, 2014, pg.3-4)
“There are truths more fundamental and significant than the laws of men intoxicated with power.”
- Martina Hoffman, artist, in Rosemary Woodruff Leary: Psychedelic Pioneer (2002) (PDF)
“Accepting that paradigm shift in our understanding of chronic pain necessarily means admitting that for decades, the approach medicine took to our largest health problem was fundamentally incorrect.”
- Maya Dusenbery, in her book Doing Harm (2018, p.204)
“Telling other people how to live is actually not a right you have.”
- Trae Crowder, the Liberal Redneck, comedian, in 2016 video
“Can I ask you a very massive question? It’s a big one, there’s obviously a lot of pressure growing in areas about legalising drugs and things like that: what are your individual opinions on that?”
- Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, asking people who've experienced addictions, 2017 Sept 20 (news coverage)
“Culture isn't just about language, food, clothing and music, but gender relations, ancient monuments, a heritage of sacred texts. But culture can also be what has been decided to be culture by those who have a political stake in pounding culture into the shape of a prison. Big political identity claims are elite bids for power. They're not answers to social or economic or political injustices. They often obscure them. And what about the large number of people across the globe who can't point to a monument from their past, who don't possess a sacred written text, who can't hark back to the past glories of a civilization or empire? Are these people less a part of humanity?”
- Chetan Bhatt, professor of sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, from his TED Talk Dare to refuse the origin myths that claim who you are, (youtube video, at 14:56)
“Virtually every part of the [U.S.] constitution is about expanding human freedom, except [alcohol] prohibition in which human freedom was being limited. When people cross the line between our essential character as Americans and some other superseding vision of what we should be, then we get in trouble.”
- Pete Hamill, writer and former journalist featured in the documentary series Prohibition (2011) (youtube video, at 4:16)
“The list of freedoms we enjoy today that were not enjoyed by our ancestors is indeed a long and impressive one. It is therefore exceedingly strange that Western civilization in the 21st century enjoys no real freedom of consciousness.
“There can be no more intimate and elemental part of the individual than his or her own consciousness. At the deepest level, our consciousness is what we are – to the extent that if we are not sovereign over our own consciousness, then we cannot in any meaningful sense be sovereign over anything else either. So it has to be highly significant that, far from encouraging freedom of consciousness, our societies in fact violently deny our right to sovereignty in this intensely personal area and have effectively outlawed all states of consciousness other than those on a very narrowly defined and officially approved list. The war on drugs has thus unexpectedly succeeded in engineering a stark reversal of the true direction of Western history by empowering faceless bureaucratic authorities to send armed agents to break into our homes, arrest us, throw us into prison, and deprive us of our income and reputation simply because we wish to explore the sometimes radical, though always temporary, alterations in our own consciousness that drugs facilitate.”
- Graham Hancock, writer, from his essay Sovereignty Over Consciousness in the Introduction to The Divine Spark (2015)
“Countries should work toward developing policies and laws that decriminalize injection and other use of drugs and, thereby, reduce incarceration.
“Countries should work toward developing policies and laws that decriminalize the use of clean needles and syringes (and that permit Needle and Syringe Programs) and that legalize Opiate Substitution Treatment for people who are opioid-dependent.
“Countries should ban compulsory treatment for people who use and/or inject drugs.”
- World Health Organization, in their July 2014 report Consolidated Guidelines on HIV Prevention, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Care for Key Populations, pg. 87 (PDF, coverage of release)
“Imagine if the government chased sick people with diabetes, put a tax on insulin and drove it into the black market, told doctors they couldn't treat them, prosecuted them for not paying their taxes, and then sent them to jail. If we did that, everyone would know we were crazy. Yet we do practically the same thing every day in the week to sick people hooked on drugs. The jails are full and the problem is getting worse every day.”
- Billie Holiday, jazz musician and singer-songwriter, in her autobiography Lady Sings the Blues (1956), pg 132/158 (source, 2, 3)
“After forty years, thousands killed, millions imprisoned, and *$1 trillion spent (or **$2.5 trillion depending on who you ask), we are still no closer to controlling either the supply- or demand-side of the illicit drug trade. Government interventions on the supply side are seen as a cost of business, like a tax rather than a serious threat; and the billions spent on DARE programmes and locking up users haven't stopped the inexorable rise of drug use in most parts of the world. In its own terms, the War on Drugs has failed, and the evidence shows it was also the wrong strategy for harm reduction. The intentional and perverse effects of the war have spread disease, held back medical research, brought the law into disrepute, and ruined the live of millions.”
- David Nutt, neuropsychopharmacologist, former Chair of the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, founder of DrugScience, in Drugs Without the Hot Air (2012) (pg. 280-1) * **
“The so-called war on drugs is this sort of masterful distraction that we will get it right someday in the future if we just try a little harder. That’s not going to happen. If we were to just legalize these substances and put our resources to helping people who develop problems with them, we’d waste less money and have much better outcomes.”
- Donald MacPherson, Executive Director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, former Drug Policy Coordinator for the City of Vancouver, Canada, and author of the lifesaving Four Pillars Drug Strategy. (2018 May 11)
“The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and the thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own: for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.”
- Rod Serling's narration at the end of the Twilight Zone episode, "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street" (Youtube clip, wiki)
“It is just such ignorance and fear [of LSD] that could be dispelled through adequate opportunity to research its use. Instead, we have the ludicrous situation of LSD being freely available on the streets, to be used dangerously, while unavailable to responsible practitioners who could use it safely and for the potential benefit of knowledge and healing...
“Down the street kids are ingesting black-market LSD of unregulated and questionable quality, and doing so as criminals. The policies that create such circumstances, and the vendetta against knowledge which they represent, deserve our resentment. If the truth shall set us free, and that is the way we deal with the possibilities of truth, then we shall never truly be free.”
- Stephen A. Appelbaum, Ph.D. in his book, The Mystery of Healing (1999), pg.242, 250
“The loophole of doctors being able to prescribe drugs to addicts is shut down state by state [in the 1930s], and California was one of the last holdouts, partly because politicians there were quite brave. I went and looked at the archives of the court case involved. It turns out the Chinese drug gangs in California were really pissed off because in Nevada they had shut down medical prescription, and so drug addicts had to go to the drug gangs to get their drugs. In California they could still go to the doctor, so the drug gangs bribed the narcotics police to introduce the drug war in California. What this tells us is that, right at the start of the drug war, criminal gangs were paying for [Prohibitions] to be introduced because they’re the only people who win from it. They’re the beneficiaries.
“For me, it was fascinating seeing the same dynamic at the end of the drug war, when I interviewed the people who led the Colorado marijuana legalisation campaign. They would make the case that we should legalize marijuana because it would bankrupt the cartels. But Steve Fox, one of the leaders of the campaign, explained to me that people in Colorado were really scared, they thought the cartels would threaten them or even kill them if they made that argument publicly. It’s fascinating to see, both at the beginning and end of the drug war: Who wants it? Who wins from it? Who benefits from it? It’s armed criminal gangs. For everyone else, it’s a disaster.”
- Johann Hari, journalist, author of Chasing the Scream (2015) in The Best Books about the War on Drugs
“The Prohibition agent and his colleagues... must have known that their Edict, if enforced, was the clear equivalent of an order to create an illicit drug industry. They must have known that they were in effect ordering a company of drug smugglers into existence.”
- Henry Smith Williams, physician & psychiatrist, in Drug Addicts are Human Beings: The Story of Our Billion-Dollar Drug Racket, How We Created It and How We Can Wipe It Out (1938), p.10 (Archive.org)
“There is no study that [finds] if you ban legal cigarettes, habitual smokers are just going to stop smoking. There are 11 million smokers in this country. This ban has not turned them into 11 million nonsmokers. You can’t use the prejudice of something for the basis of public health.”
- Tony Leon, South Africa’s former leader of the opposition (1999 to 2007) in article
“Every person who has thought seriously about the issue of prohibition has come to the realization that it is an ineffective policy and that we need a new evidence-based approach.”
- Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Canadian MP (since 2015) in article
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people... We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
- John Ehrlichman, former aide to former U.S. President Richard Nixon, 1994 interview *1 *2
“Fake prescription pills, commonly laced with deadly fentanyl and methamphetamine, are often sold on social media and e-commerce platforms – making them available to anyone with a smartphone.”
- U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), in their publication "EMOJI DRUG CODE | DECODED"
“You know it's a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob, what is the matter with them? I suppose it's because most of them are psychiatrists, you know, there's so many, all the greatest psychiatrists are Jewish. By God we are going to hit the marijuana thing, and I want to hit it right square in the puss, I want to find a way of putting more on that.”
- Richard Nixon, Prohibitionist, U.S. President 1969-74, speaking to White House Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman, recorded Oval Office tape, 1971 May 26 (transcript, youtube video, at 2:32)
“I've made up my mind, don't confuse me with the facts.”
- Harry Anslinger, Prohibitionist, first commissioner of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics 1930-62, his standard response to questioning during the 1957 meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, in United States and International Drug Control 1909-1997 (2002), pg.105
“I couldn't have gotten so stinking rich without George Bush, George Bush Jr., Ronald Reagan, even El Presidente Obama, none of them have the cajones to stand up to all the big money that wants to keep this stuff illegal. From the bottom of my heart, I want to say, Gracias amigos, I owe my whole empire to you.
“Whoever came up with this whole War on Drugs, I would like to kiss him on the lips and shake his hand and buy him dinner with caviar and champagne. The War on Drugs is the greatest thing that ever happened to me, and the day they decide to end that war, will be a sad one for me and all of my closest friends. And if you don’t believe me, ask those guys whose heads showed up in the ice chests.”
- Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, Prohibitionist, Kingpin of Mexico Sinaloa cartel, 701st wealthiest man on Earth, 2009 April 26
“It (the prison industrial complex) is a giant (voter) deregistration machine, it's Jim Crow spread to all 50 states. They passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, and in (1971) they announced the War on Drugs. And if they hadn't had drugs, they would've had a war on chitlins and soul food. They wanted a way to bring the power of the government against Black and Brown people.”
- John McTiernan, filmmaker, director of Die Hard (1988) and other amazing action movies, sharing his thoughts after spending a year in prison, in CNN Interview (YouTube video, at 3:36)
“It has been said that most revolutions are not caused by revolutionaries in the first place, but by the stupidity and brutality of governments.”
- Seán MacStiofáin, first provisional Irish Republican Army's chief of staff, 1975, sourced from Richard English, Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (2003), p.134.
“The cannabis experience has greatly improved my appreciation for art, a subject which I had never much appreciated before... This is one of many human frontiers which cannabis has helped me traverse... The enjoyment of food is amplified; tastes and aromas emerge that for some reason we ordinarily seem to be too busy to notice. I am able to give my full attention to the sensation... My high is always reflective, peaceable, intellectually exciting, and sociable, unlike most alcohol highs, and there is never a hangover... The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.”
- Carl Sagan, astronomer and science communicator, in his anonymous 1969 essay, featured in the book Marihuana Reconsidered (1971) (read the essay here and here)
“Not too long ago, the worst thing that one could be in America was a communist. 'Better Dead than Red,' said the flag wavers. We were told horror stories of the evils of Communism. We listened with horror as we learned that Soviet children spied upon their own parents and turned them in to authorities. We shuddered as we heard that the KGB routinely spied upon their own citizens and sent them off to jail, without due process. Now all that has changed – being a communist isn't so bad, but using drugs is. Today we march under a new banner that reads, 'Better Dead than a Head.' Our witch hunts are aimed at anyone who uses any substance not approved by the government. No toilet is left unturned to find and jail those who do toe the party line and fail to pass a urine test. Now it's our government that teaches our children to spy upon their parents. Now it's our government that seizes property without due process or proper warrants. Now it is our government that holds our citizens behind bars, as Domestic Prisoners of War, more than any other country in the world.”
- Steve Kubby, author and activist in his book, The Politics of Consciousness (1995), p.17
“All airlines in the U.S. have completely forbidden pipe smoking on their aircraft, although the cigarette is still permitted to permeate the air. New city ordinances are constantly threatening to interfere with a constructive working environment by outlawing pipes from office buildings. Even some restaurants have frowned upon the pipe, oblivious to the fact that tobacco both stimulates the appetite and settles the stomach. Thus, it is in our private lives that freedom still survives for the late 20th century pipe smoker. At home, on a walk, engaging in a hobby, the pipe is with us, a true friend, a constant companion, in essence, a part of our very being. And that is something that no person, no government and no law can ever take away from us, for the existence and use of the pipe is itself an integral part of Man's history.”
- Richard Carleton Hacker, in The Ultimate Pipe Book (1984), p.36-39
“If you didn't have a drug habit going in, you leave going with a drug habit. There was so much drugs in prison it was unbelievable. You could get any kind of drug you want in prison. If you can't control drug use in a maximum security prison, how could you control drugs in a free society?”
- Anthony Papa, sentenced to 15 years to life for a low-level, non-violent drug offense, featured in the documentary Breaking the Taboo (2012, at 18:00, source 1, 2 , 3)
“There are all kinds of studies that you can talk about, and you can talk this thing into the ground if you want to, but there's a fairly simple point that is very persuasive for me which is that: We can't keep drugs out of prisons!
“So we put up big walls, we take away people's civil liberties, we make them shower together, we make them wear jumpsuits, we search everyone who's going in or out, and we surround the place with guards who are armed, and we can't keep drugs out of prison! If we can't do that we're not going to keep them out of the United States of America.”
- Mark Grannis, Candidate for U.S. Congress 2010 (youtube video, at 0:10)
“I'm not saying we should make heroin available to everyone, but we should be treating it as a health issue rather than criminalising people. Everyone who has looked at this in a serious and sustained way concludes that the present policy of prohibition is not a success. I personally back the chairman of the UK Bar Council, Nicholas Green QC, when he calls for drug laws to be reconsidered with a view to decriminalising illicit drugs use. This could drastically reduce crime and improve health.”
- Sir Ian Gilmore, M.D., professor of hepatology, President of the Royal College of Physicians of London 2006-10 *1 *2
“Approximately one-third to one-half of severely traumatized people develop substance problems. Since the time of Homer, soldiers have used alcohol to numb their pain, irritability, and depression. In one recent study half of motor vehicle accident victims [were found to have] developed problems with drugs...
“These [European] countries have already made a commitment to universal health care, ensuring a guaranteed minimum wage, paid parental leave for both parents after a child is born, and high-quality childcare for all working mothers.
“Could this approach to public health have something to do with the fact that the incarceration rate in Norway is 71/100,000, in the Netherlands 81/100,000, and the U.S. 781/100,000, while the crime rate in those countries is much lower than in ours, and the cost of medical care about half? Seventy percent of prisoners in California spent time in foster care while growing up. The U.S. spends $84 billion per year to incarcerate people at approximately $44,000 per prisoner; the northern European countries a fraction of that amount. Instead, they invest in helping parents to raise their children in safe and predictable surroundings. Their academic test scores and crime rates seem to reflect the success of those investments.”
- Bessel Van Der Kolk, in The Body Keeps the Score, p.329, 170
“Man has continued to evolve by acts of disobedience. Not only was his spiritual development possible only because there were men who dared to say no to the powers that be in the name of their conscience or their faith, but also his intellectual development was dependent on the capacity for being disobedient--disobedient to authorities who tried to muzzle new thoughts and to the authority of long-established opinions which declared a change to be nonsense.”
- Erich Fromm, social psychologist and humanistic philosopher from his essay On Disobedience (1981)
“Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there's another side to the coin, and you can't remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important—creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.”
- Steve Jobs, businessman, inventor, co-founder of Apple Computers, in Motivating Thoughts of Steve Jobs (source1, 2)
“Although ozone and hydrogen peroxide therapy have been proven in both clinical trials and regular clinical practice to be safe and effective in countries such as Germany, Cuba, Mexico, Russia, Italy, Spain, France, China, and Australia, very few people have heard about oxidative therapies in the United States and Canada. Even though an estimated fifteen thousand European practitioners legally use oxidative therapies in their practices, the number of physicians using these therapies in North America is small, due in part to the fact that information about ozone and hydrogen peroxide is not provided in medical schools, which are largely funded by pharmaceutical companies. In addition, the medical establishment does not advocate the use of oxidative therapies and often discourages or prevents licensed physicians from using them in their medical practice. In the United States, medical doctors have been threatened with having their licenses revoked if they administer hydrogen peroxide or ozone. Clinics have been closed down and practitioners have been threatened with jail...
“A major reason for this bias against oxidative therapies is that ozone and hydrogen peroxide are nonpatentable substances that are very inexpensive to manufacture and use. There is simply no financial incentive to incorporate them into traditional medical practice.”
- Nathaniel Altman, medical writer and researcher, in his book The New Oxygen Prescription (2017), pg.27-28
“But the most fundamental reason I committed my life to this issue is that I saw it as one of human rights. I believe that no one deserves to be punished or discriminated against or amongst based solely on the substance one chooses to put into their body. I believe that every human being is inherently sovereign over one's own mind and body.”
- Ethan Nadelmann, author, former professor at Princeton University, former Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance, drug policy reform activist, on his podcast Psychoactive ep “The Real Drug Czar”
“Nobody but nobody deserves to be punished simply for what we put in our bodies, absent harm to others.
“Nobody but nobody deserves to be punished or discriminated against or amongst based solely upon what we put in our bodies if we don't hurt anybody else.
“Get behind the wheel of a car? Different story.
“Hurt somebody? Different story. And don't tell me that your addiction, your disease made you do it because you still need to be held responsible. That's the nature of any responsible, civilized society.
“But whatever I put in here, whatever you put in your own body, is your own business. It is not the state's, it is not your employer's so long as you are doing so in a responsible way that does no harm to other people.
“That core principle: That I am sovereign, that we are each sovereign over our own minds and bodies, that is the core principle we have to keep putting out there. Because in a world in which people keep believing in drug testing, and more and more types of external and internal surveillance systems. We need that core principle.
“It's a core element of what if means to fight for freedom. And it's not just the freedom of people who can use drugs responsibly, it's also the freedom of people who are addicted to drugs. It's about their entitlement, their basic right, their human right not to be treated as a criminal.
“It is the knot, it's the core that will bring the drug war down and lead to a fundamentally different system and a different way of dealing with drugs in our society based upon science, compassion, health, and human rights.”
- Ethan Nadelmann, former Executive Director of Drug Policy Alliance, former professor at Princeton University in politics and public affairs, from his speech "It's Time to End the War on Drugs" (archived podcast, at 50:30)
“Repression won't end drug wars.
“The latest outbreak of gang-related shootings in the Vancouver area has sparked calls for a massive police crackdown, stiffer jail sentences, and new powers to allow government surveillance of private emails. The grief of families and friends of innocent people caught in the crossfire of violence is complete understandable. But such repressive measures will do little to resolve the problem. We have only to look south of the border to see that such strategies bring no real decrease in criminal violence, despite a huge rise in the numbers of prisoners, especially from racialized communities.
“The root of gang violence, in British Columbia and elsewhere, is quite simple. We live in a capitalist society, where investors seek to maximize profits. The 'war on drugs,' far from reducing drug abuse, mainly serve to increase the price of illegal commodities, and the profit margins for capitalists who control this industry. This newspaper is certainly not the first to draw parallels with the Prohibition era, when bootleggers of illegal alcohol made fortunes which were later invested in 'legal' enterprises. Only the end of Prohibition halted the violence associated with these gangs.
“As with alcohol – sold legally by the government and private vendors – drug abuse inflict enormous damage on individuals, families, and society as a whole. But this is a health and social problem, not one which can be solved primarily using the blunt tools of law enforcement. A health-based approach is the key to removing the enormous profits and the resulting violence from the drug trade. Instead of pouring billions of dollars into more police, courts, and jails, we need to create jobs, provide free education and training for youth, build more affordable housing, and provide treatment facilities and programs for all those who need them. The 'war on drugs' has failed. It's time for a new approach.”
- Editorial from People's Voice newspaper 2009, vol.17 no.4
- Kofi Annan, United Nations' Secretary-General 1997-2006, 2001 Nobel Peace Prize recipient and former member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, 2016 Feb 22 * *
“The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”
- Aldous Huxley, writer, philosopher, in "Words and Behaviour," The Olive Tree (1936) (source 1, 2)
“The War on Drugs approach has failed and we are ready to raise our voices and find a new strategy... Ultimately this is a choice between control by governments or by gangsters; there is no third option in which drug markets can be made to disappear.”
- Fernando Henrique Cardoso, President of Brazil 1995-2002, member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, from his essay "Latin America: We Have Counted the Costs, Now We Are Ready for Change" in Ending the War on Drugs (2016, pg. 101,105)
“When law enforcement officers call for drugs to be legalised, we have to listen. So too when doctors speak up. Last month the Royal College of Physicians took the important step of coming out in favour of decriminalisation, joining the BMA (British Medical Association), the Faculty of Public Health, and the Royal Society of Public Health in supporting drug policy reform.
“This is not about whether you think drugs are good or bad. It is an evidence based position entirely in line with the public health approach to violent crime.
“The BMJ (British Medical Journal) is firmly behind efforts to legalise, regulate, and tax the sale of drugs for recreational and medicinal use. This is an issue on which doctors can and should make their voices heard.”
- Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of The British Medical Journal, in her editorial "Drugs should be legalised, regulated, and taxed," 2018 May 10 (PDF)
“When we were Presidents of Nigeria and South Africa – the largest economies on the continent – our Administrations dreamt of many things. One in particular was to create drug-free societies.
“We were wrong. We were wrong because we thought prohibition, repression, and prison would protect our children. We allowed harsh penalties for drug-related offenses, including the non-violent ones. We legitimised State forces when they arrested and punished many citizens, even when, in retrospect, that was excessive. It didn’t work.”
- Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of Nigeria (1999 to 2007) & Kgalema Motlanthe, former President of South Africa (2008 to 2009), members of Global Commission on Drug Policy, in article "Drugs: Let’s Admit We Were Wrong"
“Individuals who use drugs do not forfeit their human rights. Too often, drug users suffer discrimination, are forced to accept treatment, marginalized and often harmed by approaches which over-emphasize criminalization and punishment while under-emphasizing harm reduction and respect for human rights.”
- Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights 2008-14, speaking ahead of the meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, 2009 March 10 (PDF, PDF2)
“I am pleased to address you today, to use this opportunity to encourage a shift of focus in tackling the world drug problem – a shift from an approach primarily based on law enforcement to one that, first and foremost, focuses on the human rights of drug users.
“People do not lose their human rights because they use drugs. I put to you that they have the same rights as all of us: to health and to life, to non-discrimination, to freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention, and to freedom from torture and other forms of ill treatment.”
- Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, at the U.N. Work on the World Drug Problem, 2015 Nov 20 (PDF)
“That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant... The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”
- John Stuart Mill, philosopher, political economist, in his introduction to On Liberty (1859) (pg 18, source2, PDF edited for clarity)
“The great paradox of Prohibition is that once it was repealed, it became harder for Americans to acquire alcohol. During the dry years, illegal operators needed only to bribe a cop or two, and then open their establishments to all comers, at any time of day; if a 14-year-old wanted to score a bottle of rye on his way to school at 8 a.m., there were plenty of people ready to sell it to him. Along came Repeal, and suddenly a new regime of regulations -- age limits, closing hours, geographic proscriptions -- made that bottle a lot harder to come by.”
- Daniel Okrent, author of Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition (2010), from his article "The Paradox of Prohibition"
“In Chicago in the early '70s the best heroin you could get was 2% pure, black tar. Now after forty years of drug war: 90% pure heroin. Kids are buying it, nickel and dime bags, and having parties. It's so pure you don't need to use a needle. So, ironically, prohibition is the most effective way to put more drugs, uncontrolled and unregulated, everywhere.”
- Jim Gierach, former Assistant State's Attorney of Cook County, IL., U.S.A., member of Law Enforcement Action Partnership (video interview at 2:45)
“I would like to see total legalization of all drugs, which will cure about 80% of our crime and violence issues. Won't do anything for our drug problem, because that's a separate issue, and I believe that's a medical and a social issue that's best handled through education and treatment instead of arrest and incarceration.”
- Terry Nelson, Republican, three decades in U.S. law enforcement including Border Patrol, Customs, Dept. Homeland Security, now a member of Law Enforcement Action Partnership (video interview at 17:44, video transcript)
“Alcohol, drunkenness, in the 19th century, was, and is, a terrific social problem. It is the obligation of a caring society to try to figure out what to do, so there were lots of different groups that wanted to do something about it: progressives as well as conservatives, the single-issue Anti-Saloon League, the International Workers of the World, the industrialists, the Ku Klux Klan, and the NAACP... They always thought it was prohibition for somebody else.”
- Ken Burns, in an interview (at 4:40) about his documentary series Prohibition (2011)
“The war on drugs is an abject and dismal failure. The punitive, damaging responses to injecting drug users are grotesque and horrendous. The situation in the Russian Federation is beyond the capacity of the mind to absorb a government that is so perfidious and ugly in its behaviour to injecting drug use – the violations of human rights on every front. And we all know as well, and it's unassailable, irrefutable, it's there statistically documented: that harm reduction programs work, and they work to the benefit of all, including the entire society.”
- Stephen Lewis, co-founder and co-director of AIDS-Free World, former UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, Distinguished Visiting Professor at Ryerson University, in a speech given at the at the 19th International AIDS Conference (2012 July 23) (in podcast at 8:08, MP3, video at 6:00)
“It is unconscionable to jail sick people. It is a national disgrace that we do so.”
- Norm Stamper, Ph.D., 34 years as a police officer (Ret.), Seattle's Chief of Police 1994-2000, writer, advisory board member of Law Enforcement Action Partnership (in TED Talk at 12:35)
“We are Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, and what we mean by that term is the prohibiting of consensual adult behavior. When you take activities that consenting adults wish to do with each other and you make that activity illegal you create crime in your society. If there is a monetary aspect to that activity, you create violence in your society. Because if there's a dispute over money and there's no way to settle it in the courts, then it gets settled on the streets.
“Legalization of drugs is not to be considered as the answer to our drug problem. Legalization of drugs is a far better approach to our crime and violence problem that we have now.”
- Captain Peter Christ (Ret.) of the Tonawanda, NY Police Department and co-founder of LEAP (in interview 6:40)
“We have to take a pragmatic approach, and custody is not the right place for vulnerable people at risk of harm. They need wraparound, holistic support. You can’t arrest your way out of record drug-related deaths.”
- Chief Inspector Jason Kew of Thames Valley police, in article.
“Legalizing drugs would simultaneously reduce the amount of crime and raise the quality of law enforcement. Can you conceive of any other measure that would accomplish so much to promote law and order? ...So long as large sums of money are involved - and they are bound to be if drugs are illegal - it is literally impossible to stop the traffic, or even to make a serious reduction in its scope.”
- Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize winning economist in Newsweek, 1972 May 1
“Until we are all free, we are none of us free... we ignore and repudiate our unhappy brethren as having no part or share in their misfortunes- until the cup of anguish is held also to our own lips.”
- Emma Lazarus, author, poet, and activist, in 1883
“I think as an adult, you should be free to grow anything you want on your own property as long as you're not taking it other places. The idea that the government can tell you what you can grow in your garden, strikes me in a visceral way as wrong. Our right to privacy should include that.
“The kind of seeds that you choose to plant in your garden could result in the complete loss of your house and your property. And you don't even have to plant it [opium, cannabis]; someone else could plant it on your property. They don't even have to tie the plant to you to seek forfeiture of the asset. So a stranger could plant it, or your kid could plant it, and you could lose your house.”
- Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and The Botany of Desire, from interview featured in The Pot Book (2010, editor Julie Holland)
“It is generally forgotten that our guarantees of religious freedom were designed to protect precisely those who were not members of established denominations, but rather such (then) screwball and subversive individuals as Quakers, Shakers, Levellers, and Anabaptists.”
- Alan Watts, philosopher, author, and speaker, from “Psychedelics and Religious Experience” in California Law Review vol.56(1), 1968, p84-85 (PDF, web, web2)
“The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) opposes criminal prohibition of drugs. Not only is prohibition a proven failure as a drug control strategy, but it subjects otherwise law-abiding citizens to arrest, prosecution and imprisonment for what they do in private. In trying to enforce the drug laws, the government violates the fundamental rights of privacy and personal autonomy that are guaranteed by our Constitution. The ACLU believes that unless they do harm to others, people should not be punished -- even if they do harm to themselves. There are better ways to control drug use, ways that will ultimately lead to a healthier, freer and less crime-ridden society.”
- ACLU Position Paper
“The long federal experiment in prohibition of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and other drugs has given us crime and corruption combined with a manifest failure to stop the use of drugs or reduce their availability to children...
“Repeal of prohibition would take the astronomical profits out of the drug business and destroy the drug kingpins who terrorize parts of our cities. It would reduce crime even more dramatically than did the repeal of alcohol prohibition. Not only would there be less crime: reform would also free federal agents to concentrate on terrorism and espionage and would free local police agents to concentrate on robbery, burglary, and violent crime.”
- The CATO Institute, in the CATO Handbook for Policymakers 8th edition, 2017 (PDF)
“I have a prescription for marijuana in Los Angeles. It's for anxiety, primarily anxiety about getting arrested for marijuana.”
- T.J. Miller, actor, standup comic in T.J. Miller: No Real Reason (2011) (youtube video, at 39:00)
“In a free society, how can you commit a crime against yourself?”
- Jesse Ventura, naval veteran, former pro wrestler, actor, author, U.S. Governor of Minnesota 1999-2003 *1 *2
“Drugs pervade our society, abuse of them is rampant, and the authorities keep doing what they have always done, even though policies of eradicating drug plants, sealing borders, and zero tolerance for users have done nothing but made matters worse...
“Drugs are here to stay. History teaches that it is vain to hope that drugs will ever disappear and that any effort to eliminate them from society is doomed to failure.
“Throughout the twentieth century, Western society attempted to deal with its drug problems through negative actions: by various wars on drug abuse implemented by repressive laws, disinformation, outrageous propaganda, and attacks on users, suppliers, and sources of disapproved substances. These wars have been consistently lost. More people are taking more drugs now than ever before. Drug use has invaded all classes and ethnic groups and has spread to younger and younger children. Also, more people abuse drugs now than ever before, and the drug laws are directly responsible for creating ugly and ever-widening criminal networks that corrupt society and cause far worse damage than the substances they distribute.”
- Andrew Weil, M.D. and Winifred Rosen, in From Chocolate to Morphine: Everything You Need To Know About Mind-Altering Drugs, 2004, preface-pg.1
“No one should be stigmatized or discriminated against because of their dependence on drugs.”
- Ban Ki Moon, UN Secretary-General 2007-2016, in his message for the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, 2008 June 23
“As far as the dominating culture, the pharmaceutical-industrial-government complex, it’s not that they don’t want you to be drugs. They want you to be on drugs. They just want you to be on corporate drugs. The corporate-government approach is: if we can’t patent it, let’s prohibit it. All you do by banning these things preemptively is you create a black market, you create an opportunity for somebody to get very rich by dealing in what is now a prohibited substance, and you motivate intrepid psychonaunts to experiment even more.”
- Dennis McKenna, ethnopharmacologist & research pharmacognosist, in the documentary Neurons to Nirvana: Understanding Psychedelic Medicines (2013), at 54:00 (watch on tubi)
“It's a war against people who try just to earn their living growing some plant. They would like to grow something else if they would receive the same money. So I mean, you cannot make a war against drugs without knowing that doing so you are making a war against people.”
- Ruth Dreifuss, President of the Swiss Confederation 1999 and member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, featured in the documentary Breaking the Taboo (2012, at 7:52, source 1, 2 , 3)
“The government has as much right to control what I as an adult put into my body as it does what I put into my mind. It's none of their business.”
- James Gray, former judge, from Cannabis Reporter Radio Show Podcast, in interview at 34:39
“To say that the 'war on drugs' is a war on drugs - on the pills and powders and plants - is like saying that book burnings and censorships are attacks on paper and ink, when actually it is the ideas of the writers that are under attack - that are being suppressed. The so-called 'war on drugs' is a religious war, a war on how we are permitted to perceive reality, a war on consciousness itself. A war on what kinds of thinking and awareness are to be tolerated by the dominant power and what types of thinking and awareness are to be destroyed, by whatever means possible.”
- Richard Glen Boire, from his essay Cognitive Liberty in The Politics of Psychopharmacology (1998, 2002), pg.126
“The War on Drugs is ineffective at limiting access to dangerous drugs and, instead, empowers dangerous gangs that make incredible fortunes on the black market for these illegal drugs.
“The War on Drugs has imprisoned millions of non-violent people. This is unfair to these people and also uses up resources that would be better spent prosecuting and imprisoning people who are violent.
“The War on Drugs is largely responsible for the militarization of police forces in America. It has pitted police against citizens and this is unfair to both. Police need to be able to focus on protecting the American public from violent offenders and fraud.
“Lastly, Libertarians believe that it is immoral for the government to dictate which substances a person is permitted to consume, whether it is alcohol, tobacco, herbal remedies, saturated fat, marijuana, etc. These decisions belong to individual people, not the government.
“Because of all of these things, Libertarians advocate ending the War on Drugs.”
- U.S. Libertarian Party position statement
“The first casualty of war is truth.”
- said by many in different ways since at least 1915 (source)
“The first casualty when war comes is truth, and whenever there is a war, and whenever an individual nation seeks to coerce by force of arms another, it always acts and always insists that it acts under self-defense.”
- Hiram W Johnson, U.S. Senator to the Senate, 1929 (source)
“It is never beneficial to a nation to have a military operation continue for a long time.”
- Sun Tzu, in The Art of War (source)
“And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammerblows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken.
“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.”
- John Steinbeck, author, in East of Eden, p.131 (source)
“Filling the jails with people for drug offenses is not an indicator of success but instead is a sign of our failure to effectively deal with the problem.”
- Howard Rahtz, retired Commander in the Cincinnati Police Dept., speaker for Law Enforcement Action Partnership, writer, in his book Drugs, Crime and Violence: From Trafficking to Treatment (2012), pg. 45
“We make kids pee in a jar so we can determine what they are taking. Students who then test positive for some substance or another are often barred from participating in sports and other extracurricular activities. Those are the things that have shown, study after study, to be the most effective deterrents for drug use, [and] we are now barring students from participating.”
- Lynn Lyman, former California State Director for the Drug Policy Alliance, at a public hearing regarding the Temecula Valley Unified School District undercover sting operation that targeted special education students, 2013 August 12 (at 2:45)
“A red flag should go up for you anytime a person in a position of responsibility utters the words ‘zero tolerance,’ because that means they do not have the confidence to make a decision in their discipline, they do not have the compassion to see differences between situations, and they do not have the administrative or managerial skills to make the kind of decisions that create a thriving institution.”
- Stephen Downing, Deputy Chief of the L.A.P.D. (Ret.), Board member of Law Enforcement Action Partnership, at a public hearing regarding the Temecula Valley Unified School District undercover sting operation that targeted special education students, 2013 August 12
“You can get over an addiction, but you can never get over a conviction.
“Young people went to jail as a result of what I did. People that never committed another crime ended up with their lives ruined, and that bothers me.
“Right now, the drug lords, murderers, and terrorists out there are the ones who regulate drugs in this country. Government regulation is the only way to go, and that will only occur with legalization.”
- Jack Cole, 26 years with the New Jersey State Police, 14 years as an undercover narcotics officer, co-founder of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition *1 *2 *3
“This book covers the subject of opium from the earliest historical references to the present time. The recent discovery of opium receptors in the brain, and the body's own painkiller endorphin, suggests that there is a preaddiction metabolism related to endorphin deficiency. The addict needs to supplement a vital substance insufficiently produced in his body much as the diabetic needs insulin. So the absurdity of penalizing a metabolic deficiency is now manifest. The writers are careful not to take sides. By simply presenting the evidence, they demonstrate the futility and wasteful folly of the police and jail approach to addiction.
“'Those who are ignorant of the past will suffer its repetition.'
“Prohibition did not stop people from drinking, but it did deliver this country into the hands of organized crime. Undeterred by the dismal and expensive failure of Prohibition, reformers are still trying to legislate narcotics out of existence. The predictable result is thousands of addicts, a huge uncontrollable black market, and casualties from overdoses, hepatitis, infections, and poisonous street dope. And the attempt to enforce these unenforceable laws is costing the taxpayer billions of dollars. Methadone maintenance was the first glimmer of sanity in the antidrug hysteria that gripped America in the fifties and sixties under the able propagandizing of Harry Anslinger. And still newspaper editorials cite the growing number of addicts as reason for continuing with measures as unsuccessful as they are expensive. The are citing the failure of drug laws as reason to continue and amplify such laws. If something doesn't work why go on doing it? Flowers in the Blood provides a fascinating documentation for a sane approach to opium and opiates.”
- William S. Burroughs, writer, from his introduction to Latimer & Goldberg's Flowers in the Blood: The Story of Opium (1981, 2014, pg.3-4)
“There are truths more fundamental and significant than the laws of men intoxicated with power.”
- Martina Hoffman, artist, in Rosemary Woodruff Leary: Psychedelic Pioneer (2002) (PDF)
“Accepting that paradigm shift in our understanding of chronic pain necessarily means admitting that for decades, the approach medicine took to our largest health problem was fundamentally incorrect.”
- Maya Dusenbery, in her book Doing Harm (2018, p.204)
“Telling other people how to live is actually not a right you have.”
- Trae Crowder, the Liberal Redneck, comedian, in 2016 video
“Can I ask you a very massive question? It’s a big one, there’s obviously a lot of pressure growing in areas about legalising drugs and things like that: what are your individual opinions on that?”
- Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, asking people who've experienced addictions, 2017 Sept 20 (news coverage)
“Culture isn't just about language, food, clothing and music, but gender relations, ancient monuments, a heritage of sacred texts. But culture can also be what has been decided to be culture by those who have a political stake in pounding culture into the shape of a prison. Big political identity claims are elite bids for power. They're not answers to social or economic or political injustices. They often obscure them. And what about the large number of people across the globe who can't point to a monument from their past, who don't possess a sacred written text, who can't hark back to the past glories of a civilization or empire? Are these people less a part of humanity?”
- Chetan Bhatt, professor of sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, from his TED Talk Dare to refuse the origin myths that claim who you are, (youtube video, at 14:56)
“Virtually every part of the [U.S.] constitution is about expanding human freedom, except [alcohol] prohibition in which human freedom was being limited. When people cross the line between our essential character as Americans and some other superseding vision of what we should be, then we get in trouble.”
- Pete Hamill, writer and former journalist featured in the documentary series Prohibition (2011) (youtube video, at 4:16)
“The list of freedoms we enjoy today that were not enjoyed by our ancestors is indeed a long and impressive one. It is therefore exceedingly strange that Western civilization in the 21st century enjoys no real freedom of consciousness.
“There can be no more intimate and elemental part of the individual than his or her own consciousness. At the deepest level, our consciousness is what we are – to the extent that if we are not sovereign over our own consciousness, then we cannot in any meaningful sense be sovereign over anything else either. So it has to be highly significant that, far from encouraging freedom of consciousness, our societies in fact violently deny our right to sovereignty in this intensely personal area and have effectively outlawed all states of consciousness other than those on a very narrowly defined and officially approved list. The war on drugs has thus unexpectedly succeeded in engineering a stark reversal of the true direction of Western history by empowering faceless bureaucratic authorities to send armed agents to break into our homes, arrest us, throw us into prison, and deprive us of our income and reputation simply because we wish to explore the sometimes radical, though always temporary, alterations in our own consciousness that drugs facilitate.”
- Graham Hancock, writer, from his essay Sovereignty Over Consciousness in the Introduction to The Divine Spark (2015)
“Countries should work toward developing policies and laws that decriminalize injection and other use of drugs and, thereby, reduce incarceration.
“Countries should work toward developing policies and laws that decriminalize the use of clean needles and syringes (and that permit Needle and Syringe Programs) and that legalize Opiate Substitution Treatment for people who are opioid-dependent.
“Countries should ban compulsory treatment for people who use and/or inject drugs.”
- World Health Organization, in their July 2014 report Consolidated Guidelines on HIV Prevention, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Care for Key Populations, pg. 87 (PDF, coverage of release)
“Imagine if the government chased sick people with diabetes, put a tax on insulin and drove it into the black market, told doctors they couldn't treat them, prosecuted them for not paying their taxes, and then sent them to jail. If we did that, everyone would know we were crazy. Yet we do practically the same thing every day in the week to sick people hooked on drugs. The jails are full and the problem is getting worse every day.”
- Billie Holiday, jazz musician and singer-songwriter, in her autobiography Lady Sings the Blues (1956), pg 132/158 (source, 2, 3)
“After forty years, thousands killed, millions imprisoned, and *$1 trillion spent (or **$2.5 trillion depending on who you ask), we are still no closer to controlling either the supply- or demand-side of the illicit drug trade. Government interventions on the supply side are seen as a cost of business, like a tax rather than a serious threat; and the billions spent on DARE programmes and locking up users haven't stopped the inexorable rise of drug use in most parts of the world. In its own terms, the War on Drugs has failed, and the evidence shows it was also the wrong strategy for harm reduction. The intentional and perverse effects of the war have spread disease, held back medical research, brought the law into disrepute, and ruined the live of millions.”
- David Nutt, neuropsychopharmacologist, former Chair of the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, founder of DrugScience, in Drugs Without the Hot Air (2012) (pg. 280-1) * **
“The so-called war on drugs is this sort of masterful distraction that we will get it right someday in the future if we just try a little harder. That’s not going to happen. If we were to just legalize these substances and put our resources to helping people who develop problems with them, we’d waste less money and have much better outcomes.”
- Donald MacPherson, Executive Director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, former Drug Policy Coordinator for the City of Vancouver, Canada, and author of the lifesaving Four Pillars Drug Strategy. (2018 May 11)
“The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and the thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own: for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.”
- Rod Serling's narration at the end of the Twilight Zone episode, "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street" (Youtube clip, wiki)
“It is just such ignorance and fear [of LSD] that could be dispelled through adequate opportunity to research its use. Instead, we have the ludicrous situation of LSD being freely available on the streets, to be used dangerously, while unavailable to responsible practitioners who could use it safely and for the potential benefit of knowledge and healing...
“Down the street kids are ingesting black-market LSD of unregulated and questionable quality, and doing so as criminals. The policies that create such circumstances, and the vendetta against knowledge which they represent, deserve our resentment. If the truth shall set us free, and that is the way we deal with the possibilities of truth, then we shall never truly be free.”
- Stephen A. Appelbaum, Ph.D. in his book, The Mystery of Healing (1999), pg.242, 250
“The loophole of doctors being able to prescribe drugs to addicts is shut down state by state [in the 1930s], and California was one of the last holdouts, partly because politicians there were quite brave. I went and looked at the archives of the court case involved. It turns out the Chinese drug gangs in California were really pissed off because in Nevada they had shut down medical prescription, and so drug addicts had to go to the drug gangs to get their drugs. In California they could still go to the doctor, so the drug gangs bribed the narcotics police to introduce the drug war in California. What this tells us is that, right at the start of the drug war, criminal gangs were paying for [Prohibitions] to be introduced because they’re the only people who win from it. They’re the beneficiaries.
“For me, it was fascinating seeing the same dynamic at the end of the drug war, when I interviewed the people who led the Colorado marijuana legalisation campaign. They would make the case that we should legalize marijuana because it would bankrupt the cartels. But Steve Fox, one of the leaders of the campaign, explained to me that people in Colorado were really scared, they thought the cartels would threaten them or even kill them if they made that argument publicly. It’s fascinating to see, both at the beginning and end of the drug war: Who wants it? Who wins from it? Who benefits from it? It’s armed criminal gangs. For everyone else, it’s a disaster.”
- Johann Hari, journalist, author of Chasing the Scream (2015) in The Best Books about the War on Drugs
“The Prohibition agent and his colleagues... must have known that their Edict, if enforced, was the clear equivalent of an order to create an illicit drug industry. They must have known that they were in effect ordering a company of drug smugglers into existence.”
- Henry Smith Williams, physician & psychiatrist, in Drug Addicts are Human Beings: The Story of Our Billion-Dollar Drug Racket, How We Created It and How We Can Wipe It Out (1938), p.10 (Archive.org)
“There is no study that [finds] if you ban legal cigarettes, habitual smokers are just going to stop smoking. There are 11 million smokers in this country. This ban has not turned them into 11 million nonsmokers. You can’t use the prejudice of something for the basis of public health.”
- Tony Leon, South Africa’s former leader of the opposition (1999 to 2007) in article
“Every person who has thought seriously about the issue of prohibition has come to the realization that it is an ineffective policy and that we need a new evidence-based approach.”
- Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Canadian MP (since 2015) in article
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people... We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
- John Ehrlichman, former aide to former U.S. President Richard Nixon, 1994 interview *1 *2
“Fake prescription pills, commonly laced with deadly fentanyl and methamphetamine, are often sold on social media and e-commerce platforms – making them available to anyone with a smartphone.”
- U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), in their publication "EMOJI DRUG CODE | DECODED"
“You know it's a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob, what is the matter with them? I suppose it's because most of them are psychiatrists, you know, there's so many, all the greatest psychiatrists are Jewish. By God we are going to hit the marijuana thing, and I want to hit it right square in the puss, I want to find a way of putting more on that.”
- Richard Nixon, Prohibitionist, U.S. President 1969-74, speaking to White House Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman, recorded Oval Office tape, 1971 May 26 (transcript, youtube video, at 2:32)
“I've made up my mind, don't confuse me with the facts.”
- Harry Anslinger, Prohibitionist, first commissioner of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics 1930-62, his standard response to questioning during the 1957 meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, in United States and International Drug Control 1909-1997 (2002), pg.105
“I couldn't have gotten so stinking rich without George Bush, George Bush Jr., Ronald Reagan, even El Presidente Obama, none of them have the cajones to stand up to all the big money that wants to keep this stuff illegal. From the bottom of my heart, I want to say, Gracias amigos, I owe my whole empire to you.
“Whoever came up with this whole War on Drugs, I would like to kiss him on the lips and shake his hand and buy him dinner with caviar and champagne. The War on Drugs is the greatest thing that ever happened to me, and the day they decide to end that war, will be a sad one for me and all of my closest friends. And if you don’t believe me, ask those guys whose heads showed up in the ice chests.”
- Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, Prohibitionist, Kingpin of Mexico Sinaloa cartel, 701st wealthiest man on Earth, 2009 April 26
“It (the prison industrial complex) is a giant (voter) deregistration machine, it's Jim Crow spread to all 50 states. They passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, and in (1971) they announced the War on Drugs. And if they hadn't had drugs, they would've had a war on chitlins and soul food. They wanted a way to bring the power of the government against Black and Brown people.”
- John McTiernan, filmmaker, director of Die Hard (1988) and other amazing action movies, sharing his thoughts after spending a year in prison, in CNN Interview (YouTube video, at 3:36)
“It has been said that most revolutions are not caused by revolutionaries in the first place, but by the stupidity and brutality of governments.”
- Seán MacStiofáin, first provisional Irish Republican Army's chief of staff, 1975, sourced from Richard English, Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (2003), p.134.
“The cannabis experience has greatly improved my appreciation for art, a subject which I had never much appreciated before... This is one of many human frontiers which cannabis has helped me traverse... The enjoyment of food is amplified; tastes and aromas emerge that for some reason we ordinarily seem to be too busy to notice. I am able to give my full attention to the sensation... My high is always reflective, peaceable, intellectually exciting, and sociable, unlike most alcohol highs, and there is never a hangover... The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.”
- Carl Sagan, astronomer and science communicator, in his anonymous 1969 essay, featured in the book Marihuana Reconsidered (1971) (read the essay here and here)
“Not too long ago, the worst thing that one could be in America was a communist. 'Better Dead than Red,' said the flag wavers. We were told horror stories of the evils of Communism. We listened with horror as we learned that Soviet children spied upon their own parents and turned them in to authorities. We shuddered as we heard that the KGB routinely spied upon their own citizens and sent them off to jail, without due process. Now all that has changed – being a communist isn't so bad, but using drugs is. Today we march under a new banner that reads, 'Better Dead than a Head.' Our witch hunts are aimed at anyone who uses any substance not approved by the government. No toilet is left unturned to find and jail those who do toe the party line and fail to pass a urine test. Now it's our government that teaches our children to spy upon their parents. Now it's our government that seizes property without due process or proper warrants. Now it is our government that holds our citizens behind bars, as Domestic Prisoners of War, more than any other country in the world.”
- Steve Kubby, author and activist in his book, The Politics of Consciousness (1995), p.17
“All airlines in the U.S. have completely forbidden pipe smoking on their aircraft, although the cigarette is still permitted to permeate the air. New city ordinances are constantly threatening to interfere with a constructive working environment by outlawing pipes from office buildings. Even some restaurants have frowned upon the pipe, oblivious to the fact that tobacco both stimulates the appetite and settles the stomach. Thus, it is in our private lives that freedom still survives for the late 20th century pipe smoker. At home, on a walk, engaging in a hobby, the pipe is with us, a true friend, a constant companion, in essence, a part of our very being. And that is something that no person, no government and no law can ever take away from us, for the existence and use of the pipe is itself an integral part of Man's history.”
- Richard Carleton Hacker, in The Ultimate Pipe Book (1984), p.36-39
“If you didn't have a drug habit going in, you leave going with a drug habit. There was so much drugs in prison it was unbelievable. You could get any kind of drug you want in prison. If you can't control drug use in a maximum security prison, how could you control drugs in a free society?”
- Anthony Papa, sentenced to 15 years to life for a low-level, non-violent drug offense, featured in the documentary Breaking the Taboo (2012, at 18:00, source 1, 2 , 3)
“There are all kinds of studies that you can talk about, and you can talk this thing into the ground if you want to, but there's a fairly simple point that is very persuasive for me which is that: We can't keep drugs out of prisons!
“So we put up big walls, we take away people's civil liberties, we make them shower together, we make them wear jumpsuits, we search everyone who's going in or out, and we surround the place with guards who are armed, and we can't keep drugs out of prison! If we can't do that we're not going to keep them out of the United States of America.”
- Mark Grannis, Candidate for U.S. Congress 2010 (youtube video, at 0:10)
“I'm not saying we should make heroin available to everyone, but we should be treating it as a health issue rather than criminalising people. Everyone who has looked at this in a serious and sustained way concludes that the present policy of prohibition is not a success. I personally back the chairman of the UK Bar Council, Nicholas Green QC, when he calls for drug laws to be reconsidered with a view to decriminalising illicit drugs use. This could drastically reduce crime and improve health.”
- Sir Ian Gilmore, M.D., professor of hepatology, President of the Royal College of Physicians of London 2006-10 *1 *2
“Approximately one-third to one-half of severely traumatized people develop substance problems. Since the time of Homer, soldiers have used alcohol to numb their pain, irritability, and depression. In one recent study half of motor vehicle accident victims [were found to have] developed problems with drugs...
“These [European] countries have already made a commitment to universal health care, ensuring a guaranteed minimum wage, paid parental leave for both parents after a child is born, and high-quality childcare for all working mothers.
“Could this approach to public health have something to do with the fact that the incarceration rate in Norway is 71/100,000, in the Netherlands 81/100,000, and the U.S. 781/100,000, while the crime rate in those countries is much lower than in ours, and the cost of medical care about half? Seventy percent of prisoners in California spent time in foster care while growing up. The U.S. spends $84 billion per year to incarcerate people at approximately $44,000 per prisoner; the northern European countries a fraction of that amount. Instead, they invest in helping parents to raise their children in safe and predictable surroundings. Their academic test scores and crime rates seem to reflect the success of those investments.”
- Bessel Van Der Kolk, in The Body Keeps the Score, p.329, 170
“Man has continued to evolve by acts of disobedience. Not only was his spiritual development possible only because there were men who dared to say no to the powers that be in the name of their conscience or their faith, but also his intellectual development was dependent on the capacity for being disobedient--disobedient to authorities who tried to muzzle new thoughts and to the authority of long-established opinions which declared a change to be nonsense.”
- Erich Fromm, social psychologist and humanistic philosopher from his essay On Disobedience (1981)
“Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there's another side to the coin, and you can't remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important—creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.”
- Steve Jobs, businessman, inventor, co-founder of Apple Computers, in Motivating Thoughts of Steve Jobs (source1, 2)
“Although ozone and hydrogen peroxide therapy have been proven in both clinical trials and regular clinical practice to be safe and effective in countries such as Germany, Cuba, Mexico, Russia, Italy, Spain, France, China, and Australia, very few people have heard about oxidative therapies in the United States and Canada. Even though an estimated fifteen thousand European practitioners legally use oxidative therapies in their practices, the number of physicians using these therapies in North America is small, due in part to the fact that information about ozone and hydrogen peroxide is not provided in medical schools, which are largely funded by pharmaceutical companies. In addition, the medical establishment does not advocate the use of oxidative therapies and often discourages or prevents licensed physicians from using them in their medical practice. In the United States, medical doctors have been threatened with having their licenses revoked if they administer hydrogen peroxide or ozone. Clinics have been closed down and practitioners have been threatened with jail...
“A major reason for this bias against oxidative therapies is that ozone and hydrogen peroxide are nonpatentable substances that are very inexpensive to manufacture and use. There is simply no financial incentive to incorporate them into traditional medical practice.”
- Nathaniel Altman, medical writer and researcher, in his book The New Oxygen Prescription (2017), pg.27-28
“But the most fundamental reason I committed my life to this issue is that I saw it as one of human rights. I believe that no one deserves to be punished or discriminated against or amongst based solely on the substance one chooses to put into their body. I believe that every human being is inherently sovereign over one's own mind and body.”
- Ethan Nadelmann, author, former professor at Princeton University, former Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance, drug policy reform activist, on his podcast Psychoactive ep “The Real Drug Czar”
“Nobody but nobody deserves to be punished simply for what we put in our bodies, absent harm to others.
“Nobody but nobody deserves to be punished or discriminated against or amongst based solely upon what we put in our bodies if we don't hurt anybody else.
“Get behind the wheel of a car? Different story.
“Hurt somebody? Different story. And don't tell me that your addiction, your disease made you do it because you still need to be held responsible. That's the nature of any responsible, civilized society.
“But whatever I put in here, whatever you put in your own body, is your own business. It is not the state's, it is not your employer's so long as you are doing so in a responsible way that does no harm to other people.
“That core principle: That I am sovereign, that we are each sovereign over our own minds and bodies, that is the core principle we have to keep putting out there. Because in a world in which people keep believing in drug testing, and more and more types of external and internal surveillance systems. We need that core principle.
“It's a core element of what if means to fight for freedom. And it's not just the freedom of people who can use drugs responsibly, it's also the freedom of people who are addicted to drugs. It's about their entitlement, their basic right, their human right not to be treated as a criminal.
“It is the knot, it's the core that will bring the drug war down and lead to a fundamentally different system and a different way of dealing with drugs in our society based upon science, compassion, health, and human rights.”
- Ethan Nadelmann, former Executive Director of Drug Policy Alliance, former professor at Princeton University in politics and public affairs, from his speech "It's Time to End the War on Drugs" (archived podcast, at 50:30)
“Repression won't end drug wars.
“The latest outbreak of gang-related shootings in the Vancouver area has sparked calls for a massive police crackdown, stiffer jail sentences, and new powers to allow government surveillance of private emails. The grief of families and friends of innocent people caught in the crossfire of violence is complete understandable. But such repressive measures will do little to resolve the problem. We have only to look south of the border to see that such strategies bring no real decrease in criminal violence, despite a huge rise in the numbers of prisoners, especially from racialized communities.
“The root of gang violence, in British Columbia and elsewhere, is quite simple. We live in a capitalist society, where investors seek to maximize profits. The 'war on drugs,' far from reducing drug abuse, mainly serve to increase the price of illegal commodities, and the profit margins for capitalists who control this industry. This newspaper is certainly not the first to draw parallels with the Prohibition era, when bootleggers of illegal alcohol made fortunes which were later invested in 'legal' enterprises. Only the end of Prohibition halted the violence associated with these gangs.
“As with alcohol – sold legally by the government and private vendors – drug abuse inflict enormous damage on individuals, families, and society as a whole. But this is a health and social problem, not one which can be solved primarily using the blunt tools of law enforcement. A health-based approach is the key to removing the enormous profits and the resulting violence from the drug trade. Instead of pouring billions of dollars into more police, courts, and jails, we need to create jobs, provide free education and training for youth, build more affordable housing, and provide treatment facilities and programs for all those who need them. The 'war on drugs' has failed. It's time for a new approach.”
- Editorial from People's Voice newspaper 2009, vol.17 no.4