Molitor: Johnson Has It Right on Marijuana

Thomas Molitor

NMPolitics - The “war on drugs” is a losing battle. Our former governor touched a third-rail when he took a stance in favor of the legalization of marijuana back in the 90s. Now it appears he is to run in the presidential Republican primary in 2012 (by the way, why not for Bigaman’s vacated senatorial seat, Gary?). After $1 trillion spent on the “War on Drugs,” even the United States drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes that, “in the grand scheme, it has not been successful.” Meanwhile, with 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States now has 25 percent of the world’s prison population. In a recent report, the Associated Press assembled some pretty grim statistics. Here are just a few. The federal government has evidently spent $33 billion in various antidrug messages and prevention programs. But high-school students continue to use illegal drugs at the same rate as in 1970, and drug overdoses have risen steadily since then. 

Gary Johnson



Some 37 million nonviolent drug offenders – about 10 million of them using marijuana – have been arrested, at a cost of $121 billion; jail time, research shows, tends to increase drug abuse. Another $450 billion has been spent on locking these people up in federal prisons alone. At some point, it becomes impossible to pretend any longer that government and its law enforcement arm can solve a problem of this nature. This is a job for families and local institutions, not a paramilitary police state spearheaded by the DEA. Read full column here: News New Mexico

Molitor: Johnson Has It Right on Marijuana