Federal Judge Richard Posner has recently spoken in favor of legalizing marijuana and abolishing many of the country’s drug laws. What gives more weight to his position is his status. Judge Posner is a widely respected federal judge and is considered a conservative .Here is some of his comments;

"Personally, I don’t think we should have a fraction of the drug laws that we have. I think it’s really absurd to be criminalizing possession or use or distribution of marijuana," Posner said, prompting applause from the audience at Elmhurst College in Illinois. "I can’t see any difference between that and cigarettes."

I’m skeptical about the other drug laws. I don’t know how much we know, for example, about whether cocaine is really a disabling drug or whether it’s something people can take and lead more or less normal lives. Clearly there are, you know like LSD, obviously very dangerous drug, although I don’t think we have a good idea how many people really jump out of windows because they’re taking LSD. … There are problems, but I think the notion of using the criminal law as the primary means of dealing with a problem of addiction, of misuse, of ingesting dangerous drugs, I don’t think that’s sensible at all. And that is responsible for a high percentage of our prisoners, and these punishments are often very, very severe.

 

 

 

Is it time America rethinks the legality of its marijuana laws ? What do you think ?