Issue Position: End the War on Drugs (new)

Issue Position

he War on Drugs HAS FAILED!

Selling and using drugs may be personally unwise, but those activities don't violate anyone's rights. By establishing drug prohibition, our government has taken a modest problem and turned it into a huge problem. Now we have to deal with drug gangs and black markets, and taxpayers have to pay to keep thousands of people in jail. We need to end this nonsense.

It has not reduced usage of drugs or made any place in America safer. It wastes billions of dollars a year at a rate of about $550 per second. It wastes Law enforcement resources for example; police arrested an estimated 858,408 persons for cannabis violations in 2009, according to statistics compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Of those charged with cannabis violations, approximately 89 percent or 763,983 citizens were charged with possession only. An American is now arrested for violating cannabis laws every 30 seconds.

We need to reform our laws now and focus on education about the realities of drug abuse and concentrate on rehabilitation. Our state government should decriminalize all natural substances. The criminalization of Marijuana and other natural substances serves only as an inefficient waste of taxpayer dollars. While I believe the government has no right to criminalize natural substances, I do not advocate ending the illegality of concocted substances such as Methamphetamine, Cocaine, and Heroin or stopping the regulation of prescription drugs. I firmly believe that by ending the criminalization of natural substances, the enormous resources saved should be used to focus on crushing the manufacture and illegal smuggling of Methamphetamine. This is one of the most heinous drug problems facing us today. A toxic chemical concoction that rips apart the lives of every person that gets involved with it as well as the lives of their families.

An approach that helps the addicted and their families is what Texas needs, not political popularism. The ' war on drugs' is really a war on people. Treatment and rehabilitation are the primary focus or an advanced society. Incarceration and seizure of private property are the ways of the barbaric and archaic. Natural substances in the possession of adults should be decriminalized immediately. Chemical concoctions should still be subject to the same laws we have today.

Steps I would take:

* I would vote for a bill to allow medical marijuana like HB 1491, filed last year by Rep. Naishtat (Democrat from Austin).

* I would vote for a bill to reduce marijuana penalties like HB 548, filed last year by Rep. Dutton (Democrat from Houston).

* I would file a bill to end prohibition of marijuana and all natural substances.

Source