Drug War Issues
Politics & Advocacy
Former President Jimmy Carter said he was fine with marijuana legalization during a Tuesday CNN forum. Carter supported marijuana decriminalization during his presidency in the mid-1970s, but now is prepared to go a step further.
Jimmy Carter (wikimedia.org)
Carter's comments came as marijuana legalization has become a front burner issue like never before in the wake of the decision by voters in Colorado and Washington to move away from pot prohibition. Now, with marijuana possession by adults already legal in those two states, all eyes are on Washington, waiting to see how the Obama administration will respond to efforts by state officials to craft a system of regulations for marijuana commerce.
The former president also suggested that continued marijuana prohibition contributed to high incarceration rates, especially among racial minorities.
"It's a major step backward, and it ought to be reversed, not only in America, but around the world," Carter said, suggesting that the US should look to Portugal, which decriminalized as drug possession in 2000, as a model.
The Carter critique of marijuana prohibition and the war on drugs in general is little surprise. Not only did he favor decriminalization in the wake of the Shafer Commission report, which was commissioned and then ignored by his predecessor, Richard Nixon, in 1972, but he has since gone on to become an increasingly vocal critic of drug prohibition and proponent of marijuana law reform.
US drug policy has "destroyed the lives of millions of young people," Carter said at a September forum, and he appeared last week in the drug war documentary Breaking the Taboo again arguing that the US drug war has failed both domestically and internationally.
Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.
Comments
I'll never look at Jimmy
I'll never look at Jimmy Carter as anything but a War Criminal for what he an Brezinski did to Afghanistan when he was President. But, I do agree that we need to get past Nixon's War on Drugs, and his prejudices.
In reply to I'll never look at Jimmy by BP Storm (not verified)
2O13 Marshall Plan for Afghan
Without getting into your controversy over who's to blame, I agree there was an excellent hashish product being produced in Afghanistan before the USA blundered in and with a little help from $igarette addict L. Brezhnev destroyed that good bizness and replaced it with heroin poppies.
Getting beyond presentday disaster residues involves proactive compensatory action such as sending US Advisors (now maybe getting trained in Wash and Colo) to help Afghan farmers convert almost all the poppy fields to the Real Thing, but replace the (obsolete, designed for smuggling) hardcake hashish format with loose sifted herb, grades #16, #24, #32, exported a gram at a time worldwide in hinged-lid airtyte plastic cannisters such as those offered by La-Cons, Size #750150 (3/4" high, 1-1/2" wide, $220/1000) with Graphic How-to user instruction booklet specifying that one normally gets 40 vape tokes from a gram of #16 "regular" and up to 100 vape tokes from a gram of #32 "kief" using a long-stemmed CHOOMETTE screened one-hitter (or traditional kiseru, midwakh, sebsi etc.).
Please visit wikiHow.com: "How to Sift Herbs for Smoking Use", sign in, edit, add better pictures etc. We, the 29 trillion next-year cannabis seedlings of Forestplanet Earth, thank you.
In reply to 2O13 Marshall Plan for Afghan by mxweed (not verified)
Controversy?
I was there when Carter's CIA overthrew the gov't of Afghanistan to draw the Soviets in. No Controversy at all, I could write a book on this. The whole Afghan thing has been a lie, since 1973(when Nixon and Kissinger overthrew the King's Gov't) right down to the present. The rest of your post makes no sense at all. Typical of the concerns of the people that weren't around when the Muslims 'turned us on to hashish.' But, you wouldn't know anything about that would you. Breshnev had nothing to do with the CIA's heroin dealing friends such as Guilbeden Hekmatiar and Karzai's brother, two massive Heroin dealers. Most of what westerners think of the whole thing is just so much propaganda.
In reply to I'll never look at Jimmy by BP Storm (not verified)
marijuana reform
I feel like I live in a fascist state of oppression. No longer does the US constitution mean anything to me. The proponents of its guidelines are being totally violated and disregarded by the politicians of this day. Including the compromising and people pleaser President Obama. Why doesn't he go back to the commission president nixon commissioned to research this issue? All of our tax payer dollars were spent in vain! This president decided arbitrarily to disregard it's findings! I suppose I will go to my grave abhorring US policy regarding this debate. It's absurd, marijuana is as harmless as a flea, it's been documented. But money hunger whoremongers refuse to do what's right! I don't live in a country of individual freedom as is professed, we are under bondage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Georgia
Carter knows what time it is in Georgia . I live here also . Legal Cannabis in Ga. will upset the racial profiling and prison industry [ prison farm in Ga. ] . A south Ga. prison held Marc Emery for a while . The Canadian reportedly hated the climate . Congress will have to force Cannabis legalization onto the south just as it had to with civil rights issues . Civil Rights ?
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