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Marijuana gives rise to insanity -- not in its users but in the policies directed against it. A nation that sentences the possessor of a single joint to life imprisonment without parole but sets a murderer free after perhaps six years is in the grips of a deep psychosis.
Eric Schlosser
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote critiques the irrational and punitive policies against marijuana use compared to the leniency shown to violent crimes.

Eric Schlosser's quote highlights the absurdity and injustice in the legal system regarding marijuana. It points out how a society can be considered 'insane' when it imposes harsh penalties for minor drug offenses while treating serious crimes with leniency, illustrating a critical disconnect in moral and legal reasoning.

Themes

MarijuanaInsanityPolicyJusticeLaw

In practice

Example use cases

During a debate on drug reform, this quote could be used to emphasize the need for a rational approach to drug laws.

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Quote by Eric Schlosser | QuoteProject