Jimmy Carter: Marijuana Legalization Is Smart, Imprisonment For Posses

[loves420]

Jimmy Carter: Marijuana Legalization Is Smart, Imprisonment For Possession Is Out Of Control

 

The Huffington Post | By Nick Wing Posted: 12/12/2012 9:25 am EST | Updated: 12/12/2012 12:49 pm EST

 

 

 

 

Former President Jimmy Carter gave a full-throated endorsement of state efforts to legalize marijuana during an appearance at a CNN forum aired on Tuesday.

Carter, who as president supported an era of marijuana decriminalization in the mid-1970s, told CNN's Suzanne Malveaux that he was "in favor" of states that were taking steps to legalize the drug.

 

 

"I think it’s OK,” Carter said. “I don’t think it’s going to happen in Georgia yet, but I think we can watch and see what happens in the state of Washington for instance, around Seattle, and let the American government and let the American people see does it cause a serious problem or not.”

 

 

Voters in both Washington and Colorado approved ballot initiatives last month legalizing and taxing marijuana. The governors in those states have signed both measures into law, but marijuana reform advocates remain concerned that federal law, which still considers the substance illegal under the Controlled Substances Act, could lead to complications if federal authorities decide to continue with frequent raids of dispensaries and other marijuana-related operations.

 

 

Speaking about the issues of an anti-drug system focused on enforcement, Carter suggested that large incarceration rates, especially among minorities, were being perpetuated by harsh punishments for marijuana possession.

 

 

"It's a major step backward, and it ought to be reversed, not only in America, but around the world," Carter argued, later going on to say that nations such as Portugal, which decriminalized all drugs in 2000, could be a model for the United States to look toward in the future.

 

 

Carter has been an increasingly vocal proponent of reforming U.S. marijuana laws and strict drug prohibition efforts in the nation and around the world. Speaking earlier this year, Carter accused U.S. drug policy of having “destroyed the lives of millions of young people.” He went on to promote an "alternative approach, beginning with treatment instead of just imprisonment for people who use drugs but do no harm to others.”

 

 

 

 

And last week, Carter appeared in the drug war documentary

"Breaking the Taboo"

to argue that the nation's anti-drug crusade had failed both at home and abroad.

 

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_2283989.html

[loves420]

Jimmy Carter: 'I think it's OK' to legalize marijuana

 

 

By Justin Sink - 12/11/12 05:40 PM ET

 

Former President Jimmy Carter said that he favored legalizing marijuana during a panel discussion broadcast on CNN Tuesday.

 

 

“I’m in favor of it. I think it’s OK,” Carter said at the forum, which was taped Friday. “I don’t think it’s going to happen in Georgia yet, but I think we can watch and see what happens in the state of Washington, for instance around Seattle, and let the American government and let the American people see does it cause a serious problem or not.”

 

 

Carter added that he thought it was appropriate to allow states like Washington and Colorado — which voted last month to legalize recreational marijuana use — to see how marijuana legalization would look.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“So I think a few places around the world is good to experiment with and also just a few states in America are good to take the initiative and try something out," Carter said. "That’s the way our country has developed over the last 200 years. It’s about a few states being kind of experiment states. So on that basis I am in favor of it.”

 

The former president added that he did not think that legalizing drugs would lead to more drug users.

 

“All drugs were decriminalized in Portugal a few years ago and the use of drugs has gone down dramatically and nobody has been put in prison,” Carter said.

 

 

Proponents of marijuana legalization have argued that ending the prohibition on the drug would help clear overcrowded prisons. Carter said he has long believed the drug should be decriminalized.

 

 

“When I was president, in 1979 I made my definitive speech about drugs and I called for the decriminalization of marijuana," Carter said. "This was in 1979 — not for the legalization but the decriminalization to keep people from being put in prison just because they were smoking a marijuana cigarette."

 

 

A poll released last week by the Huffington Post showed 51 percent of Americans believed the federal government should not interfere in states where marijuana was legalized. Of those surveyed, 58 percent said the federal government should also exempt medical marijuana patients and dispensaries from federal drug laws.

 

 

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...lize-marijuana