Meeting Persephone

"When even one American - who has done nothing wrong - is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril." - Harry S. Truman

"Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear to me than in the laws against possession of marihuana in private for personal use… Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marihuana."
- President Jimmy Carter, Speech delivered to Congress, 1977

"The lesson has already been learned with alcohol prohibition. We tried to engineer an alcohol-free society and ended up with huge criminal enterprises, government corruption, children lured into organized crime and random violence that took the lives of countless innocent people."
- Kurt Schmoke, Mayor of Baltimore

"Why use up the forests which were centuries in the making and the mines which required ages to lay down, if we can get the equivalent of forest and mineral products in the annual growth of the hemp fields?"
- Henry Ford

"Estimates suggest that from 20 to 50 million Americans routinely, albeit illegally, smoke marijuana without the benefit of direct medical supervision. Yet, despite this long history of use and the extraordinarily high numbers of social smokers, there are simply no credible reports to suggest that consuming marijuana has caused a single death. By contrast, aspirin, a commonly used, over-the-counter medicine, causes hundreds of deaths each year."
- DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young

"A smoker would theoretically have to consume nearly fifteen hundred pounds of marijuana within about 15 minutes to induce a lethal response... In strict medical terms, marijuana is far safer than many of the foods we commonly consume. For example, eating ten raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death."
- DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young

"Since you (US "drug tsar" McCaffrey) control a federal budget that has just been increased from $17.8 billion last year to $19.2 billion this year, is asking people like you if we should continue with our nation's current drug policy like a person asking a barber if one needs a haircut?"
- Judge James P. Gray, Orange Country, California, Los Angeles Times, 29 March 2000

"It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error."
- U.S. Supreme Court, in American Communications Association v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382,442

"Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
- Abraham Lincoln, December 1840


"Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others... he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current that sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
- Robert F. Kennedy

"When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny."
- Thomas Jefferson

"There is no greater tyranny, than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice"
- Montesquieu

"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this."
- Albert Einstein, "My First Impression of the USA," 1921

"The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world."
- Carl Sagan

"You're asking the government to control individual morality. This is a government that can't buy a toilet seat for under $600."
- Peter McWilliams, Author of "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do"

"I do smoke, but I don't go through all this trouble just because I want to make my drug of choice legal. It's about personal freedom. We should have the right in this country to do what we want, if we don't hurt anybody. Seventy-two million people in this country have smoked pot. Eighteen to 20 million in the last year. These people should not be treated as criminals."
- Woody Harrelson

"I used to smoke marijuana. But I'll tell you something: I would only smoke it in the late evening. Oh, occasionally the early evening, but usually the late evening - or the mid-evening. Just the early evening, midevening and late evening. Occasionally, early afternoon, early midafternoon, or perhaps the late-midafternoon. Oh, sometimes the early-mid-late-early morning. . . . But never at dusk."
- Steve Martin

"Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing."
- Harry J. Anslinger, 1948, Federal Bureau of Narcotics Chief, 1948 (couldn't resist that one considering that just before this he was threatening that it made smokers angry aggressive and murderous)

"I think people need to be educated to the fact that marijuana is not a drug. Marijuana is an herb and a flower. God put it here. If He put it here and He wants it to grow, what gives the government the right to say that God is wrong?"
- Willie Nelson

"Freedom of consciousness and thought should be a fundamental liberty, yet this is what truly frightens those who favor the drug war. Cannabis is a powerful tool in exploring consciousness and reality, one that is healthy and safe for the vast majority. Those who would punish and imprison us for cannabis have been lied to and misled. Our task is to educate them with truth and love."
- Paul Stanford

"Totalitarianism is when people believe they can punish their way to perfection."
- House Speaker Newt Gingrich, at a President's Day Republican fundraiser, May 1998

"Corruptisima republica plurimae leges." (The more corrupt a republic, the more laws.) - Tacitus, Annals III 27

"Narcotics police are an enormous, corrupt international bureaucracy... and now fund a coterie of researchers who provide them with 'scientific support'... fanatics who distort the legitimate research of others... The anti-marijuana campaign is a cancerous tissue of lies, undermining law enforcement, aggravating the drug problem, depriving the sick of needed help, and suckering well-intentioned conservatives and countless frightened parents."
- William F. Buckley

”In any war, the first casualty is common sense, and the second is free and open discussion.”
- James Reston, The New York Times, 1965

"In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. It is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death. Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man."
- DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young

"My choice is what I choose to do,
And if I'm causing no harm, it shouldn't bother you.
Your choice is who you choose to be,
And if you're causin' no harm, then you're alright with me.
If you don't like my fire, then don't come around, 'cause I'm gonna burn one down. Yes, I'm gonna burn one down.
Herb the gift from the earth,
And what's from the earth is of the greatest worth.
So before you knock it try it first,
Oh, you'll see it's a blessing and not a curse."
- Ben Harper