Newt To N.H.: Founding Fathers Would Have Busted You For Pot

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Newt Gingrich: “I think Jefferson or George Washington would have rather strongly discouraged you from growing marijuana and their techniques for dealing with it would have been rather more violent than our current government”

​GOP Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich continued on Wednesday to show off his profound lack of comprehension of both drug policy and the mood of the American electorate, telling a New Hampshire audience that Washington and Jefferson would have violently suppressed marijuana.

Gingrich was pressed on three separate occasions Wednesday during a town-hall style meeting in Concord, N.H., where he said he had “no interest” in even considering cannabis decriminalization, reports Sam Stein at the Huffington Post.

The befuddled candidate — who dropped like a stone in Iowa after having led the race just a couple months ago — appeared headed for a similarly unspectacular finish in the Live Free or Die State.
Newt claimed that drug decriminalization efforts “haven’t worked” in Europe, seemingly unaware of Portugal’s success at doing exactly that (see results of the study in Scientific American).
When asked, just a little later, about the high rate of imprisonment among young people due to the drug laws, Gingrich answered, “I think the best thing is to get young people not to do drugs and then you won’t be dealing with criminals that you just described.”
A third New Hampshire resident argued that the Founding Fathers had been far more lenient about cannabis than current politicians, but Newt was having none of that.
“I think Jefferson or George Washington would have rather strongly discouraged you from growing marijuana and their techniques with dealing with it would have been rather more violent than our current government,” Gingrich claimed.
In reality, all drugs were legal during the time of Washington and Jefferson; neither of those men, having grown up in an atmosphere of actual freedom, would likely have ever thought to try to stop you from ingesting any substance you wished.
Besides that larger point, in the American colonies and the early years of our republic, you could actually be arrested for not growing hemp, which was deemed vital to the economic health of the nation.
Newt recently extolled the virtues of Singapore’s harsh drug policies, including the death penalty for dealers, and suggested such policies should be adopted in the United States.

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