cannabisnews.com: Leaders' Stance on Drug Use Hypocrisy Leaders' Stance on Drug Use Hypocrisy Posted by FoM on November 07, 2000 at 10:52:28 PT News With Citizen Patriot Source: Michigan Live One remarkable thing about today's election is what we no longer consider remarkable. Dope-smoking party boys can grow up to be president of the United States. Not long ago, political figures were ruined if illegal drug use came to light. Remember Douglas Ginsburg? His nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court fizzled 13 years ago when the world learned he once had a taste for marijuana. After Ginsburg, it became acceptable for baby-boom-aged politicians to confess that they experimented with pot in college.Experiment is always the word they use. It sounds like they were inventing something instead of getting stoned.Eight years ago, marijuana use still worried presidential candidates enough that Bill Clinton concocted his ridiculous story about not inhaling.Surviving that scandal, like others to come, Clinton proved Americans are ready to demand less from their presidents.So it goes almost without mention that today's choice for president comes down to two men widely perceived as former drug hounds.Al Gore admits he smoked marijuana in college, in the Army and as a young newspaper reporter. That is a long experiment. We must assume he liked the stuff."When I was young, I did things young people do," Gore said. "When I grew up, I put away childish things."George W. Bush admits nothing but the public perception is bad. Young Bush was a heavy drinker and he refuses to discuss drug use in a way that sounds like he did something wrong."Here's the important thing that I think baby-boomer generations ought to be sending," Bush said. "If we've made mistakes, we've learned from our mistakes. If we made mistakes when we were young, we've learned and we're responsible citizens."America will do fine with either man as president because they are right. It makes no difference to the future of our nation how Gore and Bush celebrated Friday nights 30 years ago. Maybe they are even better leaders for learning from youthful mistakes.What bothers me is that one man's youthful mistake is another's 10 years without parole.Politicians who once used drugs namely Clinton and Newt Gingrich don't mind tossing the next generation into prison by the thousands.They pass mandatory minimum sentences that have no logical relation to justice and they allow police to seize property from people never charged with a crime.Law-abiding citizens are glad to see it. We assume these stern measures target drug kingpins.So here's what we get: 300,000 Americans are serving hard time in federal and state prisons for drugs, 12 times more than in 1980. That does not count all the people in county jails or on probation.Can 300,000 people be kingpins?Fifty-eight percent of convicts in federal prisons are now drug offenders. If you are convicted in federal court, you have a better chance of getting probation for murder (8.8 percent in 1998) than for drugs (6.4 percent).We've stacked our prisons full of drug offenders and still there is little detectable effect on supply or demand. It is time to try something else.If our next president can receive forgiveness, we're all hypocrites to keep throwing more and more people into prison for making their youthful mistakes today.Source: Michigan LivePublished: Tuesday, November 7, 2000Copyright 2000 Michigan Live Inc.Website: http://ja.mlive.com/ CannabisNews - Cannabis Archives:http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #2 posted by freedom fighter on November 07, 2000 at 14:33:28 PT hyprocrisy knows no bounds I could not understand why america people would even want to vote these people. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by observer on November 07, 2000 at 13:50:23 PT Experiment is always the word they use Experiment is always the word they use. It sounds like they were inventing something instead of getting stoned.Like Dick Cowan asked, "were they wearing white labcoats when doing their experiments?"http://www.ackley-uniforms.com/mens_smocks.htmhttp://www.pro-uni.com/labcoats.htm [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: