If you want my vote, along with the vote of at least 25 million disaffected and disenfranchised voters, many of whom never bother to vote, here's what you need to do. As both a parent and a member of the Clinton administration, I have fully supported my boss's position on the drug war. However, as I look to charting my own destiny, I've come to realize that it's time to make a difficult stand on a difficult issue, and become a leader, instead of a follower. I've come to realize that the weapons we are using to fight the Drug War are doing more damage to our innocent civilians, and to our society as a whole, than to our enemy in this painful and important struggle.
Drugs are bad - let's make no mistake about that.
But the negative consequences of treating addiction as a crime problem, instead of a health problem, are just as bad now, if not worse, than they were in 1933, when we abandoned Prohibition. Today, as in 1933, our cities have become violent battlegrounds, where gangsters attack each other to protect their turf, with innocent bystanders often getting caught in the crossfire. Today, as in 1933, the black market thrives, with untold fortunes going untaxed and a massive underground industry going unregulated and uncontrolled, all while the banned substances remain as widely available as ever. If elected, I will thank General McCaffrey for proving, once and for all, that we cannot arrest our way out of our national drug problem, and instead ask Ethan Nadelman, of the Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation, to take his place as our national Drug Czar. And on November 7th, they'll be joined by great numbers of us who believe that pot smokers should have the same basic rights as beer drinkers, wine lovers, and cigarette smokers.