Political Quotes

“There is much that Congress deals with that seems intractable. We struggle with the great issues of war and peace. We view climate change and its devastating impacts and are paralyzed. We look at this still-simmering racial unrest and the painful events of Ferguson, Missouri, and largely are ignoring the underlying issues. There is one area where government at the State and local level and here in Congress can make things a little easier, a little more sensible, and that is dealing with our failed policy of marijuana prohibition. There was a sad article on the front page of The Times yesterday about a call center employee, paralyzed since he was 16 years old, who was fired from his job because he used medical marijuana in a State where it is legal, on his off-hours, at home at night, to control his back spasms. That had nothing to do with his job performance, yet this person was terminated. There is a certain degree of hypocrisy, where someone having a glass of wine at home is treated radically different. This is just one small example of a much larger problem. The cost of our failed prohibition causes untold damage to racial minorities, especially African American young men who are much more likely to be arrested and jailed, even though they use marijuana no more frequently than young White men, jailed for something most Americans now think should be legal.…”