Presidential Politics: Democrat Mike Gravel is Latest to Say Legalize

Opposition to the drug war among major party presidential candidates has thus far been represented by Rep. Ron Paul, libertarian Republican congressman from Texas, and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, progressive Democratic congressman from Ohio. The list just got longer. Former Alaska US Senator Mike Gravel is definitely a long-shot for the Democratic Party 2008 presidential nomination, but his performance at the first Democratic presidential candidates debate (transcript here) April 26 in Charleston, SC, really raised his profile and is giving Paul and Kucinich some competition for the anti-prohibitionist vote.

Gravel's combination of humor and anger as he attacked President Bush and his fellow Democratic contenders for their stances on the Iraq war, relations with Iran, and other issues were for many watchers the first introduction to a man who retired from politics in 1980. But the Mike Gravel who played a key role in the publication of the Pentagon Papers and ending the draft all those years ago didn't really seem to have changed all that much. He's still the iconoclast he was forty years ago.

It shows in his position on drug policy. According to his campaign web site, Gravel's prison and drug reform plank is as follows:

"The United States incarcerates more people and at a higher rate than any other peacetime nation in the world. According to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics the number of US residents behind bars has now reached more than 2.3 million.

"We are losing an entire generation of young men and women to our prisons. Our nation's ineffective and wasteful 'war on drugs' plays a major role in this. We must place a greater emphasis on rehabilitation and prevention. We must de-criminalize minor drug offenses and increase the availability and visibility of substance abuse treatment and prevention in our communities as well as in jails and prisons.

"We must increase the use of special drug courts in which addicted offenders are given the opportunity to complete court supervised substance abuse treatment instead of being sentenced to prison. We must eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing laws. We must increase the use of alternative penalties for nonviolent drug offenders. Drug defendants convicted of nonviolent offenses should not be given mandatory prison sentences. We should emphasize the criminalization of the importers, manufacturers, and major distributors, rather than just the street vendors. Prisons in this country should be a legitimate criminal sanction -- but it should be an extension of a fair, just and wise society."

But Gravel went much further in a May interview with the Iowa Independent. When asked if he really thought marijuana should be legal, and should cocaine and methamphetamine be legal, too, he replied: " When are we are going to learn? We went through the Depression and we realized how we created all the gangsters and the violence. When FDR came in he wiped out Prohibition. We need to wipe out this whole war on drugs. We spend $50 billion to $70 billion a year. We create criminals that aren't criminals. We destabilize foreign countries. With respect to marijuana, Doug, I'll tell you what: Go get yourself a fifth of scotch or a fifth of gin and chug-a-lug it down and you'll find you lose your senses a lot faster than you would smoking some marijuana."

When pressed again about cocaine and meth, Gravel replied: "We need to legalize the regulation of drugs. The drug problem is a public health problem. It's not a criminal problem. We make it a criminal problem because we treat people like criminals. You take a drug addict, you throw him in jail, you leave him there, and he learns the criminal trade so that when he gets out you have recidivism."