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Mike Gravel on Medical Marijuana and Drug Policy
This candidate has withdrawn from the election
Q: "What do you think about legalizing marijuana...?" GRAVEL: "That one's real simple. I would legalize marijuana."
We have to address the whole drug issue. I see no reason between marijuana and booze or alcohol, and there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to go to a liquor store and buy marijuana. It has recuperative powers.
2007 HRC/LOGO debate Aug 9, 2007
With hard drugs, what you should do is you decriminalize it. You turn around and treat it like a health issue that it is. And so people who want hard drugs -- let them go to a doctor; let them get a prescription. Then we can record them and be ready to help them when they're ready to be helped.
2007 HRC/LOGO debate Aug 9, 2007
"Q: This afternoon the DEA began extensive raids on medical marijuana facilities in California. Would you put an end to these raids?" GRAVEL: "Totally...I would deregulate. There's nothing wrong with marijuana. It's not nearly as addictive as alcohol, and plus it has some health properties to it. So we deregulate marijuana, let you go buy it in a package store."
"It's not the drugs that [are] the problem, it's the War on Drugs."
"We've developed a population in our jails of 2.4 million people. More than anybody else in the world. Shame on us. And that's a product of our war on drugs. And we've destabilized countries like Afghanistan and Vietnam, Bolivia, Columbia, Mexico, Panama. There's just no end to the damage [the war on drugs] has been doing on our global relationships and to the American people and it has not diminished regardless of the figures the government pumps out to rationalize spending $50-$70 million a year. It has not diminished our drug dependency. We need to focus on drug dependency and you do it as a health problem, not as a criminal problem."
"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."
"And one of the areas that touches me the most and enrages me the most is our War on Drugs that this country has been putting forth for the last generation."
When asked how he would remedy substance-abuse problems that plague communities across the nation, the grandfather of four says he would start with the "decriminalization" of marijuana and by treating drug addiction as a public health problem, not a criminal problem.
"With respect to hard drugs, we have to recognize that addiction...[is] an addiction problem. And so we have to treat it for what it is, a public health problem, not a criminal problem."