Quotes on Drug Prohibition

Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves.

Every friend of freedom... must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence.

Mistrust those in whom the urge to punish is strong.

While democracy must have its organizations and controls, its vital breath is individual liberty.

Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marijuana in private for personal use... Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce [28g] of marijuana.

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind.

Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

Prohibition only drives drunkenness behind doors and into dark places, and does not cure it or even diminish it.

It is not the function of government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.