Quotes About the War on Some Drug Users

Insanity is doing the same old thing
over and over again
and expecting a different result.
-- Bill Clinton, campaign debate, October 11, 1992

More quotes

And here we come to the vital distinction between the advocacy of temperance and the advocacy of prohibition. Temperance and self-control are convertible terms. Prohibition, or that which it implies, is the direct negation of the term self-control. In order to save the small percentage of men who are too weak to resist their animal desires, it aims to put chains on every man, the weak and the strong alike. And if this is proper in one respect, why not in all respects? Yet, what would one think of a proposition to keep all men locked up because a certain number have a propensity to steal? -- Felix Mendelsohn, 1915

Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim. -- George Santayana, "The Life of Reason"

I'd rather that England should be free than that England should be compulsorily sober. With freedom we might in the end attain sobriety, but in the other alternative we should eventually lose both freedom and sobriety. -- W.C. Magee, Archbishop of York, "Sermon at Peterborough," 1868

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. -- C.S. Lewis, in "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment," an essay from "God In The Dock"

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves. -- Ronald Reagan, The New York Times, April 13, 1980

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. -- John Stuart Mill

Totalitarianism is when people believe they can punish their way to perfection. -- House Speaker Newt Gingrich, at a President's Day Republican fundraiser, May 1998

[In] my era everybody smoked and everybody drank and there was no drug use -- Current DEA Chief Thomas Constantine, July 1, 1998

Yes, if we harm ourselves it may emotionally harm others. That's unfortunate, but not grounds for putting us in jail. If it were, every time we stopped dating person A in order to date person B, we would run the risk of going to jail for hurting person A. If person B were hurt by our being put in jail, person A could be put in jail for hurting person B. This would, of course, hurt person A's mother, who would see to it that person B would go to jail. Eventually, we'd all be in jail. ... Roughly half of the arrests and court cases in the United States each year involve consensual crimes - actions that are against the law, but directly harm no one's person or property except, possibly, the "criminal's." More than 750,000 people are in jail right now because of something they did, something that did not physically harm the person or property of another. In addition, more than 3,000,000 people are on parole or probation for consensual crimes. Further, more than 4,000,000 people are arrested each year for doing something that hurts no one but, potentially, themselves. -- Peter McWilliams, Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do

Congress should definitely consider decriminalizing possession of marijuana....We should concentrate on prosecuting the rapists and burglars who are a menace to society. -- U.S. Representative Dan Quayle, March 1977

Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana. -- President Jimmy Carter, Message to Congress, Aug. 2, 1977

Whenever the offense inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigor of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind. -- Edward Gibbon, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," 1776

The passing of an unjust law is the suicide of authority. -- Pastoral Letter of the American Roman Catholic Hierarchy, February 1920

Make the most of the Indian Hemp Seed and sow it everywhere. -- George Washington

The greatest service that can be rendered to any country is to add a useful plant to its culture. -- Thomas Jefferson

Abusus non tollit usum. [Abuse is no argument against proper use.] -- Latin proverb

If you say, "Would there were no wine" because of the drunkards, then you must say, going on by degrees, "Would there were no steel," because of the murderers, "Would there were no night," because of the thieves, "Would there were no light," because of the informers, and "Would there were no women," because of adultery. -- St. John Chrysostom, "Homilies," circa 388

The only freedom which counts is the freedom to do what some other people think to be wrong. There is no point in demanding freedom to do that which all will applaud. All the so-called liberties or rights are things which have to be asserted against others who claim that if such things are to be allowed their own rights are infringed or their own liberties threatened. This is always true, even when we speak of the freedom to worship, of the right of free speech or association, or of public assembly. If we are to allow freedoms at all there will constantly be complaints that either the liberty itself or the way in which it is exercised is being abused, and, if it is a genuine freedom, these complaints will often be justified. There is no way of having a free society in which there is not abuse. Abuse is the very hallmark of liberty. -- Lord Hailsham, former Chief Justice, "The Dilemma of Democracy"

Corruptisima republica plurimae leges. [The more corrupt a republic, the more laws.] -- Tacitus, Annals III 27

Republic . . . it means people can live free, talk free, go or come, buy or sell, be drunk or sober, however they choose. -- John Wayne

The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this. -- Albert Einstein, "My First Impression of the USA," 1921

I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn't make it worse. -- Brendan Behan (1923-1964)

Narcotics police are an enormous, corrupt international bureaucracy ... and now fund a coterie of researchers who provide them with 'scientific support' ... fanatics who distort the legitimate research of others. ... The anti-marijuana campaign is a cancerous tissue of lies, undermining law enforcement, aggravating the drug problem, depriving the sick of needed help, and suckering well-intentioned conservatives and countless frightened parents. -- William F. Buckley, Commentary in The National Review, April 29, 1983, p. 495

A politician normally prospers under democracy in proportion ... as he excels in the invention of imaginary perils and imaginary defenses against them. -- H. L. Mencken, 1918

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. -- Saul Bellow

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other in order that the people may require a leader. -- Plato

Those, who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Ben Franklin

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. -- Herbert Spencer

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. -- Edmund Burke

Crime is contagious....if the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law. -- Justice Louis Brandeis

He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it - namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain. -- "Tom Sawyer," by Mark Twain, Chapter 2, "The Glorious Whitewasher"

In any civilized society, it is every citizen's responsibility to obey just laws. But at the same time, it is every citizen's responsibility to disobey unjust laws. -- Martin Luther King Jr.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. -- Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience," 1849

In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up. -- Pastor Martin Niemoller

When they took the 4th Amendment, I was quiet because I didn't deal drugs.
When they took the 5th Amendment, I was quiet because I wasn't a criminal.
When they took the 2nd Amendment, I was quiet because I didn't own a gun.
Now they've taken the 1st Amendment, and I can say nothing about it. -- author unknown