Slamming War on Drugs, Sanders says Let States Make Pot Legal

[eridani]

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/10/29/slamming-war-drugs-sanders-says-let-states-make-pot-legal

The presidential hopeful made the remarks at a town hall meeting at George Mason University.

"In the United States we have 2.2 million people in jail today, more than any other country. And we’re spending about $80 billion a year to lock people up. We need major changes in our criminal justice system—including changes in drug laws," the U.S. Senator from Vermont said.

He said that in 2014, there were 620,000 marijuana possession arrests. "That is one arrest every minute," he said. Sanders also cited an ACLU report that showed that there were over 8 million marijuana arrests from 2001 to 2010, almost 9 in 10 of which were for possession.

"And let us be clear," he continued, "that there is a racial component to this situation. Although about the same proportion of blacks and whites use marijuana, a black person is almost four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person."

"Too many Americans have seen their lives destroyed because they have criminal records as a result of marijuana use. That’s wrong. That has got to change," he said to applause.

[billhicks76]

1. It's An Herb...Not A Drug

End the War On People.

[retrowire]

2. beg to differ

a drug is practically anything that alters one physical or mental being.

technically we could call food a drug but that's beside the point.

sorry, just being nitpicky.

[billhicks76]

6. So Air Is A Drug?

And music? And love? I suppose this conversation too? Lol. Cmon. Drugs are man made. I've never encountered a more harmless, healing substance in my life. Caffeine is 100 times worse.

[retrowire]

7. hmmm

drugs are man made. that's a fair differentiator.

I like it.

[Qutzupalotl]

3. Plants and fungi should be legal.

They predate us, after all.

[azmom]

4. Those numbers are staggering. I had

No idea it was this bad.

[MisterP]

5. that's the "Sanders Difference": he'd been talking about these issues for years before March 2015

ever since Bush's reign his CSPAN videos have been the ones you send your fence-sitting (and even hardline) relatives to lay out how our country works (and doesn't) and get them to rethink politics beyond the horse race or issue being used as a wedge of the current 18-month cycle

[azmom]

8. I'll start doing that

Thanks for suggesting it.