In the Panhandle - John Buckley for WVSen Takes Issue with Hancock Co. Sheriff, Call for "New Approach" to Marijuana

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By Unknown

John Buckley, Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate, meeting with students at Wheeling Jesuit University, called for the legalization of marijuana and a new approach in the failed "War on Drugs."

Buckley said he would sponsor legislation to remove marijuana from Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act. "There is no justification for putting kids in jail for the use, possession, or sale of marijuana," said Buckley.

"The so-called "War on Drugs' has been an abject failure.

"It hasn't eliminated the scourge of drug abuse; instead it has created a lucrative black-market for international drug cartels, narco-terrorists, and domestic gangs."
Buckley says he respectfully takes issue with the position of Hancock County Sheriff Ralph Fletcher, who was featured in a June Washington Post story as a vigorous enforcer of arrests for marijuana possession:

"Sheriff Fletcher said drug abuse "all starts with marijuana' and that's why he touts his aggressive "success' in marijuana arrests.

"I disagree with that approach."

In addition to his campaign theme of "Live & Let Live," Buckley said there are practical reasons to declare the "War on Drugs" a hugely expensive and counterproductive failure and to try a different approach:

"We need to treat drug abuse as a health problem, not a criminal problem.

We haven't made a dent in drug abuse, but we've wasted billions of taxpayer dollars, empowered vicious and destabilizing gangs, created a Central American wave of illegal emigration to the United States, jailed hundreds of non-violent offenders, invaded homes without warrant, burst the budgets of law enforcement (with less attention to real crime), violated principles of privacy and private property, deprived sick people of access to medical marijuana, and dangled incentives to a life of crime by artificially driving up the profits of illicit drugs."

"Washington, D.C. politicians have a vested interest in "perpetual war,'" concluded Buckley, "but I think it's time for some new thinking and actual problem-solving."

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