Washington – Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens says he thinks the federal government should legalize marijuana.
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The 94-year-old retired justice tells NPR that public opinion has changed on the issue.
Stevens also says that there isn’t much distinction between marijuana and alcoholic beverages. He says that the prohibition against alcohol in the early 20th century is generally thought not to have been worth the cost and that he believes that will be how marijuana is viewed in the future.
Stevens is the author of a new book, “Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution,” in which he proposes banning capital punishment and limiting gun rights.
NPR will air its interview with Stevens on the program “Weekend Edition Saturday.”
Well we have all seen the devastation of alcohol abuse and we all know the dangers of drug abuse so let’s not fool ourselves. Marijuana is a dangerous drug. It alters the brain and causes users to live in a fantasy land and altered states just as alcohol does. It either heightens the senses to a state of mania or dulls the senses to a state of irrational and illogical thought processes.
One can’t function in an “altered state” of self medication and one can’t function in an unaltered state once addicted. Any drug, whether legal or illegal, alcohol or nicotine will eventually harm the mind, body or soul in one way or another. Anyone who thinks or believes otherwise is either a fool or an addict. It takes the knowledge and experience of those who have seen the damage it causes to speak the truth. It takes those who have watched others, especially kids who thought they had it under control when in fact they were under control of the substance they were abusing. Furthermore, there is no doubt about it, that just like cigarettes is a gateway drug to pot pot is a gateway drug to stronger and more dangerous and harmful highs. Drugs are very greedy just like money. Once you taste it and get used to having it you crave more and more, you are game to try different and better. All makes and models, all new adventures just like the next money making scheme, just like the next bottle of booze, just like the next car in the collection, just like the next “need” you just have to satisfy.
Legalizing marijuana is as good an idea as introducing alcohol to a five year old and just as irresponsible.
But against that we must balance the damage our drug policies have caused to people, and to our legal institutions. We gave Nixon’s War on Drugs” a good try. We have fought wars for it. We have failed. It is simply time to try something else.
You could smile at the state and you could wear a skirt and dance, but will there ever be a smile on the face of humanity if there is really a great American pot smoking voyeurism contest? I think that we can not predict the affairs before us in every capacity, but perhaps there will be more smoke em while you want to sink states ahead of us. It is a garbage lifestyle with garbage advantages, but someone perhaps wants to really aspire to garbage becomings. I personally would not wish to toke it up unless my body was in a medical need which the physician recommended the pot for my own betterment of the starved physical soul. But really, who needs pot when you can have a good cigar? I would give 1000 bucks to see the whole world enjoying more cigars than I would to even get 100 dollars for limiting my own exposure to the marijuana craze. This is a garbage society we are seeing and it grows and fades like a pulsatile hornets nest.
You take Jobs and we will take American Pain. Never Again.