The Boston Globe published this week a guest editorial arguing, as RPI Chairman and Founder Ron Paul memorably did during a 2011 Republican presidential primary debate in South Carolina, that heroin should be legalized. While the Globe editorial presents strong arguments for heroin legalization, it shies away from discussing the right to use heroin. In contrast, when asked in the debate about legalizing heroin, Paul zeroed in on individual rights, saying that protecting the right to use heroin is part of his commitment to protecting liberty “across-the-board”... read on...
RPI's Adam Dick joined the Lions of Liberty Podcast on Thursday for a discussion of the drug war and advancing liberty through electoral politics. Dick discusses with host Marc Clair how states and local governments going their own way on marijuana laws are overcoming the United States government’s war on marijuana, as well as some of the incremental steps the US government has taken over the last few years to roll back its drug war. Dick also makes some predictions about the war on a drugs and pitches a new Smokey and the Bandit movie about driving marijuana from Colorado to Texas. read on...
Ron Paul addresses Monday on the Ron Paul Channel the menacing militarization of police in the United States. Paul, the chairman and founder of RPI, explains the problem extends from small towns obtaining military combat vehicles to United States government agencies buying up vast amounts of weapons and ammunition to police employing over 40,000 SWAT team raids each year.
Paul also notes in the commentary that crime in Denver has decreased following the legalization of marijuana in Colorado. Paul wonders if Colorado may be on to something—less laws are a better means than militarized police to reduce crime. read on...
Kinky Friedman, who is competing in a runoff election Tuesday for the Democratic Party nomination for Texas Agriculture Commissioner, describes his race as “kind of a referendum on lifting this prohibition on hemp and on pot.” Can Friedman, who has gained notoriety among potential Texas voters as a singer/songwriter, mystery book writer, Texas Monthly columnist, and Texas governor candidate, bring legal marijuana and hemp to Texas?
While many people may view Texas as among the least likely states for a candidate promoting marijuana and hemp legalization to win statewide office, polling indicates a majority of Texans support marijuana legalization. Nevertheless, Texas politicians are reluctant to legalize, likely in part because they are concerned about a backlash from the minority of Texans who support the war on marijuana. read on...
Ron Paul, Wednesday on Fox Business’ The Independents, praises state governments’ nullification of marijuana prohibition. Paul, though, proceeds to warn against the taxation motivation behind liberalizing marijuana laws, noting that “if you had a libertarian society, you wouldn’t be legalizing something just so you could tax it.” read on...
Judge Andrew Napolitano, speaking on Fox News with Jenna Lee, explains why, “as someone who has harshly and repeatedly criticized the President,” he believes President Barack Obama “is doing the right thing” in granting clemency to potentially hundreds or thousands of people who have been incarcerated for nonviolent drug crimes. read on...
Eighty years after the Twenty-First Amendment to the United States Constitution ended the US government's prohibition on alcohol, Jeff Mosier reports in the Dallas Morning News that in elections Tuesday residents of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex cities of Arlington and Lewisville voted to legalize liquor stores in their cities. Mosier explains that the election results in these cities with respective populations of around 365,000 and 100,000 are part of a trend over the last decade of Texans voting to ease local legal restrictions related to alcohol. read on...
The US Food and Drug Administration's announcement Thursday that it supports adding more pain medications to Schedule II of the Controlled Substances Act is a critical step in expanding through regulatory fiat the US government's war on pain doctors and their patients that RPI Chairman and Founder Ron Paul fought to end in the US House of Representatives.
Paul, both a doctor and US Representative, sought on July 7, 2004 to end the health and justice crisis through offering an amendment to the Department of Justice appropriations bill. Paul's amendment was ruled out of order after it was debated on the House floor, preventing it from receiving a vote. The Congressional Record excerpt below contains Paul's amendment and his House floor speech in the debate. With the FDA proposing expanding the devastating war on pain doctors and their patients, Paul's speech is more relevant now than ever. read on...
In contrast to the counter-terrorism narrative used to defend the US government's mass spying program, unfolding revelations suggest the program's Latin America efforts are focused on much besides terrorism. First, evidence arose that the US spying program, alone and in coordination with spying programs of other nations, is engaging in industrial espionage against Brazilian companies and the Brazil government's mines and energy ministry. Now, new revelations suggest that the US spying program targeted current and former Mexican presidents, along with other high level Mexican government officials, for surveillance to advance the war on drugs. read on...
Guatemala President Otto Fernando Pérez Molina in his speech Thursday before the United Nations General Assembly praised the marijuana legalization bill progressing through the Uruguay national government as well as marijuana legalization adopted via popular votes in the US states of Colorado and Washington. read on...
