Drugs

"We are not drug addicts. We are not criminals. We are free men, and we will react to persecution the way free men have always reacted."

"Now its one thing to say (I say it) that people shouldnt consume psychoactive drugs. It is entirely something else to condone marijuana laws the application of which resulted, in 1995, in the arrest of 588,963 Americans. Why are we so afraid to inform ourselves on the question?"

"Its the money, stupid. After 33 years as a police officer in three of the countrys largest cities, that is my message to the righteous politicians who obstinately proclaim that a war on drugs will lead to a drug-free America. About $500 of heroin or cocaine in a source country will bring in as much as $100,000 on the streets of an American city. All the cops, armies, prisons and executions in the world cannot impede a market with that kind of tax-free profit-margin. It is the illegality that permits the obscene mark-up, enriching drug-traffickers, distributors, dealers, crooked cops, lawyers, judges, politicians, bankers, businessmen."

"Today, our nation is fighting two wars: one abroad and one at home. While the war in Iraq is in the headlines, the other war is still being fought on our own streets. Its casualties are the wasted lives of our own citizens. I am speaking of the war on drugs. And I cannot help but wonder how many more lives, and how much more money, will be wasted before another Robert McNamara admits what is plain for all to see: the war on drugs is a failure."

"The decades-long draconian approach of the international community to preventing drug dependence is now widely recognised to have been a human disaster, both in the failure to tackle the primary issue and for the additional human suffering caused, including the patients in moderate to severe pain who have been prevented from accessing essential medicines. We need politicians and policymakers to be courageous enough to admit that past policies were misguided, and to rebalance their priorities and approaches in ways that will reduce human suffering."

"Ashes to ashes, funk to funky We know Major Toms a junkie Strung out in heavens high Hitting an all-time low"