Political Quotes

“Last week I had the opportunity to be an official observer at the United Nations as they had a special meeting dealing with the international war on drugs. Much has happened since President Clinton addressed the Global Drug Summit at the United Nations in 1998, carrying the American war on drugs to the international stage. But this, in my mind, solidified the need for us to reset these failed drug policies. People across the political spectrum now agree that this approach to drug policy is flawed and ineffective. We have spent over $1 trillion on this effort over the years. We have undermined countries in Latin America and helped unleash an unprecedented wave of violence in Mexico, killing tens of thousands of people in the drug wars. Yet, despite all the effort, all the money, drugs are still widely available in the United States, actually less expensive than before we started. We seem unable to even keep drugs out of our own prisons. America's failure to deal with harm reduction, treatment, and prevention has helped lead to the epidemic of opioid addiction and death. In 2013 alone, we lost 20,000 people to prescription drug overdose. As people get hooked on amazingly over-prescribed prescription drugs, it leads to heroin addiction when they substitute it when they can no longer get access to opioids.…”