Ron Paul may have achieved something of a victory by coming in third in the Iowa caucus yesterday, which is something few political wonks could have imagined a couple of months ago. Still, something should be said for the fact that he maintained his firm stance against the drug war after being narrowly beaten by candidates who are absolutely against marijuana reform.
In an early morning interview, Paul renewed his call to end federal interference in state marijuana laws and repeatedly called the drug war a failure. He even went so far as to call it a worse failure than alcohol prohibition! And according to Paul, his performance at the Iowa caucus proves that many Americans agree with him and are fed up.
Here’s the video, courtesy of Huffington Post.
And then we have Newt Gingrich. Earlier today at a press conference in New Hampshire, an SSDP member asked the candidate how he felt about states’ rights and how the Founding Fathers would have felt about growing marijuana.
Here’s the video:
Huh. So this is what a self-styled “historian” thinks.
“I think Jefferson and George Washington would strongly discourage you from growing marijuana, and their tactics to stop you would be more violent than they would be today.”
While there is no evidence to suggest that George Washington or Thomas Jefferson actually used marijuana (despite what you may have heard in Dazed and Confused), there is plenty of evidence that they both grew hemp and supported its cultivation throughout the country.
There is also no evidence that they would have supported violent tactics against American citizens for growing a plant. That sounds like something King George would have done.
Gingrich is all about it, though. Over the years, he has repeatedly supported creating insanely draconian punishments for drug offenses, even going so far as to push for the death penalty for smugglers. He recently suggested making our drug policies closer to those of Singapore.
So when faced with a loss to a candidate whose supporters often rally around the intent of the Founding Fathers, Gingrich decides to rewrite history to make it sound like men who rebelled against tyranny would support his tyrannical policy stances.
People care about honesty. Maybe that explains why Ron Paul beat Gingrich by eight points last night.
Thanks for not hesitating to show the world what an ass you are, Newt.
Please add this to the article!
“Make the most of the Indian hemp seed, and sow it everywhere!” – George Washington in a note to his gardener at Mount Vernon (1794)
We condone heavy duty addictive pain killers that are way way worse then good old Mary Jane yet we have a federal government that goes against EVERYTHING THIS COUNTRY WAS FOUNDED ON. Even good old booze is legal….Why give the money to the murderous cartels? When our Country is in such bad shape! Have we forgotten WE THE PEOPLE?
Eye of Newt Gangrene clearly has a disregard for our Founding Documents and like so many other politicians does everything in the Declaration of Independence which pissed off the early settlers.
With regard to Washington, I’ve heard he lost all this teeth and used wooden dentures, not sure how true that is, but even if it’s not, I’m sure he was exposed to at least these three pain killing substances: alcohol, opium poppy juice/sap, and cannabis.
There may not be any evidence we can find (although following the links indicates there is lots of circumstantial evidence to convince “Dr. Burke, president of the American Historical Reference Society and a consultant for the Smithsonian Institute” http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/180/highsociety.html ), but each of those three was in use, and had been in use for millennia, so to assume he wasn’t medicated with them during his military career, and other painful times of his life, is naive, Newt. Let alone the possibility which Dr. Burke adheres to, that various early big names did employ cannabis for recreational purposes.
What an outrageous hypocrite for going on and on about “being positive” then spouting death threats.
What a crock Newt is a undercover murder marijfuana is a safe and effective drug with zero deaths in its path I have been on opiate pain killers for years and have sufferd witbdrawls worse then death itself and also have smoked marijuana for 20 years and can ubruptly stop with nothing more then a thought gee i wish i culd catch a buzz not the horrible physical withdrawl of eaither gt mre pills or take the bullet thght to end the suffering you feel co.e on npw the evidence is ther I feel as if we are in some sick parraell universe that is onlivious to the real dangers and go after a safe medecine called cannibis give me a break lets out law poision ovy a useless substance that hurt people every day and food altogether cuz we all knw we have a obesity problem in america so y not outlaw everything cuz everything kills us we die the minut we start living why not live it with a harmless substance that makes life easyer and takes the woos of life off our shpulders fer a long day of wrk n play oh bt we have alchole dat couses all kinds of problems in wich cannibis dose nun of the sorts OPEN YOUR EYES NEWT YOUR LIVING BLIND N JST CUZ THE POT SMOKEN HIPPIES MAKE U MAD DOESENT MEAN U GOTTA B A DICK N EVEN GO AS FAR AS DETH PENALTYS FOR MARIJUANA SMUGGLERS in my book they are the saints that help us acheive a better life and whatever happen to tje laws weghing the same as the crime death to a person with marijuana come on think about this ZERO DEATHS FROM MARIJUANA IN ALL RECORDED HISTORY so how dose a deth penalty really equal up to the drug itself!!!! U the government stop !!! thinking of the money and ruining peoples lives over a harmless plant
To understand Newt Gingrich distorted views of history is to imagine the faces of such historic figures being replace with the face and personality of Newt Gingrich.