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RainDog

(28,784 posts)
Fri Jan 6, 2012, 10:39 PM Jan 2012

Quote/Unquote

Last edited Wed Jan 11, 2012, 09:39 PM - Edit history (2)

Il est dangereux d’avoir raison dans des choses où des hommes accrédités ont tort. ~Voltaire (1752)
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

Corruptisima republica plurimae leges. ~Tacitus, Annals III 27
The more corrupt a republic, the more laws.

Member from upstate New York: “Mr. Speaker, what is this bill about?”

Speaker Rayburn: “I don’t know. It has something to do with a thing called marihuana. I think it’s a narcotic of some kind.” (Marihuana Tax Act Hearing, 1937)

If people let government decide which foods they eat and medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny." ~Thomas Jefferson

Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control mans' appetite through legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not even crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our Government was founded ~President Abraham Lincoln (December 1840)

The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this. ~Albert Einstein "My First Impression of the U.S.A. (1921)

Five years of Prohibition have had, at least, this one benign effect: they have completely disposed of all the favorite arguments of the Prohibitionists. None of the great boons and usufructs that were to follow the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment has come to pass. There is not less drunkenness in the Republic, but more. There is not less crime, but more. There is not less insanity, but more. The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished. ~H. L. Mencken, "The American Mercury"

I’d rather see MY CHILDREN up against a wall and see them SHOT DOWN BEFORE MY EYES than to know that any one of them was going to be A DRUG SLAVE! ~Col. Levi G. Nutt, head of the Narcotics Division of the US Treasury Dept, via Hearst newspapers (1929)

Persons using this narcotic (marijuana) smoke the dried leaves of the plant, which has the effect of driving them completely insane. The addict loses all sense of moral responsibility. Addicts to this drug, while under its influence, are immune to pain, and could be injured without having any realization of their condition. While in this condition they become raving maniacs and are liable to kill or indulge in any form of violence to other persons, using the most savage methods of cruelty without, as said before, any sense of moral responsibility...If this drug is indulged in to any great extent, it ends in the untimely death of its addict." Emily Murphy, Edmonton Canada (1923)

The marihuana cigarette is one of the most insidious of all forms of dope, largely because of the failure of the public to understand its fatal qualities. The Nation is almost defenseless against it, having no Federal laws to cope with it and virtually no organized campaign for combating it. ~Washington Times Editorial (1937)

It creates delusions of grandeur and breaks down the will power and makes the addict ready for any crime, even murder. ~Ida B. Wise Smith, Women's Christian Temperance Union, CBS radio network speech

Was it marijuana, the new Mexican drug, that nerved the murderous arm of Clara Phillips when she hammered out her victim's life in Los Angeles?...THREE-FOURTHS OF THE CRIMES of violence in this country today are committed by DOPE SLAVES – that is a matter of cold record.” Hearst Newspapers

Harry Anslinger, First Commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN)

"Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men."

"This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."

"...the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races."

"How many murders, suicides, robberies, criminal assaults, holdups, burglaries and deeds of maniacal insanity it causes each year, especially among the young, can only be conjectured..." (yeah, Harry, we know it was all "conjecture.&quot

It is possible to stop most drug addiction in the United States within a very short time. Simply make all drugs available and sell them at cost. Label each drug with a precise description of what effect - good or bad - the drug will have on the taker. This will require heroic honesty. Don't say that marijuana is addictive or dangerous when it is neither, as millions of people know -- unlike "speed," which kills most unpleasantly, or heroin, which can be addictive and difficult to kick. Along with exhortation and warning, it might be good for our citizens to recall (or learn for the first time) that the United States was the creation of men who believed that each person has the right to do what he wants with his own life as long as he does not interfere with his neighbors' pursuit of happiness (that his neighbor's idea of happiness is persecuting others does confuse matters a bit) - Gore Vidal, "Drugs," 1970

Our youth can not understand why society chooses to criminalize a behavior with so little visible ill effect or adverse social impact...On top of this is the distinct impression among the youth that some police may use the marihuana laws to arrest people they don't like for other reasons, whether it be their politics, their hair style or their ethnic background...

Federal and state laws (should) be changed to no longer make it a crime to possess marijuana for private use. State laws should make the public use of marijuana a criminal offense punishable by a $100 fine. Under federal law, marijuana smoked in public would merely be subject to seizure. ~National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse "Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding" March (1972)

Marijuana leads to homosexuality ... and therefore to AIDS. ~Reagan White House Drug Czar Carlton Turner (1986)

(Turner resigned on Dec. 16, 1986 after an October 27, 1986 Newsweek editorial lambasted him for his lies. He went on to make a fortune by going into the urine-testing business with partner, Peter Bensinger, a former head of the National Institute on Drug Awareness.)

"If adults want to take such chances [using marijuana], that is their business." Ronald Reagan

"Of course Dad was for legalization. He wasn't crazy. He didn't want his kids in jail!" Michael Reagan interview

One substitute for the disappearing Evil Empire (The Soviet Union) has been the threat of drug traffickers from Latin America. In early September 1989, a major government-media blitz was launched by the President. That month the AP wires carried more stories about drugs than about Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa combined. If you looked at television, every news program had a big section on how drugs were destroying our society, becoming the greatest threat to our existence, etc. ~Noam Chomsky, What Uncle Sam Really Wants

Medicines often produce side effects. Sometimes they are physically unpleasant. Cannabis too has discomforting side effects, but these are not physical they are political" ~The Economist, March 28th 1992

The most reliable scientific sources say permanent brain damage is one of the inevitable results of the use of marijuana. ~Ronald Reagan

This morning you said you were against mandatory motorcycle helmets because it's a limit to personal freedom, and then later this afternoon you said you were against decriminalizing marijuana because it causes brain damage. Can’t not wearing a motorcycle helmet cause brain damage a lot of quicker than marijuana by, for example, the head splitting open so that actual material from the road enters the brain? -- Al Franken to Ronald Reagan, as reported in Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot

And on the seventh day, god stepped back and said and said, "This is my creation, perfect in every way... oh, dammit I left all this pot all over the place. Now they'll think I want them to smoke it... Now I have to create Republicans. ~Bill Hicks, Comedian

Casual drug users should be taken out and shot. ~Daryl Gates, former L.A. Police Chief

There are no violent gangs fighting over aspirin territories. There are no violent gangs fighting over whisky territories or computer territories or anything else that's legal. There are only criminal gangs fighting over territories covering drugs, gambling, prostitution, and other victimless crimes. Making a non-violent activity a crime creates a black market, which attracts criminals and gangs, which turns what was once a relatively harmless activity affecting a small group of people into a widespread epidemic of drug use and gang warfare. ~Harry Brown, Libertarian Party

What's going on in many cities isn't people being hooked on drugs; it's people being hooked on drug money. If you undermine that, it would lead to a reduction in violence. Not the elimination—there's always going to be evil in the world—but (reduction of) this high level tied to drug distribution. ~Kurt Schmoke, former mayor of Baltimore

...Short term controlled trials indicate that smoked cannabis reduces neuropathic pain, improves appetite and caloric intake especially in patients with reduced muscle mass, and may relieve spasticity and pain in patients with multiple sclerosis. Furthermore, the report urges that “the Schedule I status of marijuana be reviewed with the goal of facilitating clinical research and development of cannabinoid-based medicines, and alternate delivery methods. ~American Medical Association. November, 2009

DEA Online: "Exposing the Myth of Smoked Medical Marijuana"

Q. Does marijuana have any medical value?

A: The American Medical Association recommends that marijuana remain a Schedule I controlled substance.

Marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit. ~White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, at a Fresno, Calif., press conference, 2009

I’d always done a lot of (sniffing) glue as a kid. I was very interested in glue, and then I went to lager and speed, and I drifted into heroin because as a kid growing up everybody told me, ‘don’t smoke marijuana, it will kill you’ ~Irvine Walsh, Trainspotting

The chemistry lesson from last century is that no drug has ever caused as much problems as the attempts to rescue us from them. ~Arnold Trebach, professor emeritus, American University.

(Our current prison state) has the dual effect of getting rid of a superfluous population of basically unskilled workers (with a close race-class correlation), and also demonizing them...The drug war is basically for this - It has nothing to do with drugs, but it has plenty to do with criminalizing an unwanted population and scaring everybody else." ~Noam Chomsky, "Free Market Fantasies: Capitalism in the Real World," Harvard, 1996

Racial minorities comprised a strikingly disproportionate percentage of the prison population. African Americans constituted 46.5% of state prisoners and 40% percent of federal prisoners, although they constituted only 12 percent of the national population. ~Human Rights Watch World Report 2001: United States

The War on Drugs has been an utter failure. We need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws. But I'm not someone who believes in legalization. ~Barack Obama





okay. decriminalization would be a good start.
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Quote/Unquote (Original Post) RainDog Jan 2012 OP
Awesome! Lone_Star_Dem Jan 2012 #1
thanks! RainDog Jan 2012 #2
kickity ala Quagmire n/t RainDog Jan 2012 #3

RainDog

(28,784 posts)
2. thanks!
Sat Jan 7, 2012, 12:35 AM
Jan 2012

luckily for me I viewed the source before you fixed it when trying to show it. lol.

this was fun to do.

I had to leave out some great quotes b/c it turned out they were too great - as in not real. I found the source for one of them, tho - it would be something fun for another time.

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