Marijuana Policy

We need to legalize marijuana.  

Period.   I can almost hear the “there go the Libertarians again” in the media.    Those remarks ignore the enormous cost the drug war has heaped upon our country.    The personal cost borne by young people and very unevenly on people of color is well documented.   People get a negative mark that scars them for life.   It’s time to end it now.

Upon election, I will immediately appoint a board to recommend clemency for ANY offender who did not commit another crime in conjunction with their marijuana arrest.

Legalization in Colorado, Washington, and elsewhere means the interest groups and the media can’t lie to you any more about the impacts of legalization.   Many of the problems claimed by the prohibitionists simply did not materialize.

We’re finally breaking the cartels in Mexico and elsewhere, as legalized marijuana is driving them out of the trade.

And this ties into the use of resources. We don’t need more courts, probation officers, police, prosecutors, prisons, guards, and the rest of the enforcement apparatus needed continue this assault on our liberty.  Instead, criminal justice should be focused on crimes against people and property.

I favor a broad exemption from any form of taxation on marijuana distributed as medicine. Patients enduring pain from chronic disease, injury, PTSD, or other medical affliction should not have enormous new taxes imposed on their care.

As for new revenues.   I support diverting no more than 20% of any income derived from legalization (and it should not be taxed any more than any other item) — and that 80% of these revenues go directly back to taxpayers in the form of an equalized tax credit.