James P. Gray quotes
The effect of our drug policy on the health of people who use illicit drugs stem from four basic problems: (1) a lack of information about medial hygiene, because our laws push drug users away from the medical professionals who can help them; (2) no quality control regarding either the strength or purity of illicit drugs; (3) the inability of many drug users to prepare and use injectable drugs under more medically hygienic conditions;... and (4) the enormous pressure on drug addicts to engage in dangerous criminal activity, such as prostitution, burglary and drug dealing, in order to get the money to purchase these artificially expensive drugs.
James P. Gray
Even high security prisoners like Charles Manson are testing positive in prison for illicit drugs... Our laws are not deterring many people from a life of drug abuse and drug trafficking, and if we cannot even keep these drug out of our prisons, how can we expect to keep them out of our communities?
James P. Gray
‘It's a rare person who wants to hear what he does not want to hear.' To that comment I offer a corollary: ‘Friends tell friends the truth.' The real problem in this area actually is not the drugs themselves. The real problem is that our citizens and our leaders simply will not look at the evidence, even though it is all around us. Our present policy is exacerbating the problems and will not stand up to scrutiny. What we really need to do is to open the subject to rigorous public debate.
James P. Gray
Similarly, when drug users are forced to steal or prostitute themselves in order to get money to buy artificially expensive illicit drugs from the criminal underworld, that is a Drug Prohibition problem more than it is a drug problem. So too is the diversion of billions of dollars from the prosecution of violent street crime and fraud to the prosecution of hundreds of thousands of non-violent drug sellers and millions of drug users a distinct problem of Drug Prohibition.
James P. Gray
We have never been a drug-free society and we never will be. Recognizing this fact, and recognizing the fact that these harmful drugs are here to stay, we should try to employ an approach that will most effectively reduce the deaths, disease, crime, and misery caused by their presence in our communities.
James P. Gray
Not only have more and more people realized that alcoholism really is a disease, but the legal system has also stated clearly in the California Supreme Court case of Sundance v. Municipal Court that people who are addicted to alcohol cannot be punished merely for their addition... It remains a critical part of our zero-tolerance policy that people who use illegal drugs cannot be considered in human terms. They must be treated as demons and we must contrast ‘drug cultures,' on the one hand, with ‘decent' people, on the other.
James P. Gray
Many medical and legal professionals believe that in many ways marijuana is actually less harmful than my drug of choice, alcohol. So if adults choose to use marijuana instead of alcohol, the governments, as a matter of freedom and liberty, should not be able to prohibit them from doing so.
James P. Gray
So much money is wasted in the drug war. I've had two congressman, Orange County congressman, tell me that there are lots of people in Washington who now believe that the drug war is not winnable but that it is imminently fundable... Where President Eisenhower once talked about the Military-Industrial Complex, we now have the Prison-Industrial Complex. It's the same thing, the same disease.
James P. Gray
Nothing in the history of the United States of America has eroded the protection of our Bill of Rights nearly as much as our government's War on Drugs... Conventional wisdom says that the only way to stem the tide is to grant law enforcement agencies greater and greater powers and to let them intrude more and more completely into the private lives of our people.
James P. Gray
![[I]t is much easier to control, regulate, and police a legal market than an illegal one. (James P. Gray)](https://cdn.quotesdtb.com/img/quotes_images_webp/53/james-p-gray-control-1007153.webp)
