| The Chronicle |
| Newt Gingrich: “See, when I smoked pot it was illegal, but not immoral. Now it is illegal AND immoral. The law didn’t change, only the morality … That’s why you get to go to jail and I don’t.” |
GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich does not support the legalization of medical marijuana, and in fact, would like to see the United States adopt a tougher policy against the use of cannabis and other substances, including the death penalty for some dealers.
Gingrich on Saturday told Yahoo! News’ Chris Moody that California showed medical marijuana was a “joke.” He introduced legislation to legalize the use of medicinal cannabis in 1981, but has since changed his mind about it, reports Eric W. Dolan at The Raw Story.
“What has changed was the number of parents I met with who said they did not want their children to get the signal from the government that it was acceptable behavior and that they were prepared to say as a matter of value that it was better to send a clear signal on no drug use at the risk of inconveniencing some people, than it was to be compassionate toward a small group at the risk of telling a much larger group that it was OK to use the drug,” Gingrich claimed.
The fact that Gingrich admitted in a 1995 New York Magazine interview that he had smoked pot as a young man — “That was a sign we were alive and in graduate school in that era” — forced him to do some fancy footwork a year later when asked why he supports arresting people for something for which he wasn’t punished.
| Rockford Register Star |
| “My general belief is that we should be much more aggressive about drug policy” |
”See, when I smoked pot it was illegal, but not immoral,” Gingrich “explained” to journalist Hilary Stout in 1996, according to 2012 Republican Candidates. “Now, it is illegal AND immoral. The law didn’t change, only the morality … That’s why you get to go to jail and I don’t.” Got that, stoner?
That was the same year Gingrich introduced H.R. 4170 (the Drug Importer Death Penalty Act of 1996) to the House of Representatives, which sought to “provide a sentence of death for certain importations of significant quantities of controlled substances.”
The Georgia Republican didn’t bother to explain why he considers using a natural herb like cannabis to be “immoral drug use,” yet apparently has no problem with the vast amount of dangerous, often deadly, chemicals being produced by Big Pharma and freely, even recklessly, prescribed by doctors whose education costs were often paid by — you guessed it — the guys who make the pills. That’s not “drug use,” apparently, in Newt’s sad little, head-up-his-ass world.
Medical marijuana legalization does not increase its use among teenagers, according to a report presented at the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting and Exposition. What’s more, the death toll from legal prescription drug overdoses has more than tripled in the past decade, according to an analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — while there has never been a single documented overdose fatality from cannabis.
“My general belief is we ought to be much more aggressive about drug policy,” Gingrich said, showing just how far out of touch he is with the 80 percent of Americans who support legalizing cannabis for medicinal use as recommended by a physician.
Gingrich called for harsher economic penalties for “illegal drug use” and more drug testing, including mandatory drug testing for anyone who receives unemployment compensation or food stamps.
Florida and Missouri have already passed laws requiring mandatory piss tests for applicants to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program; Republican lawmakers in other states have also proposed similar laws this year. GOP blowhards have continued with their calls for the mandatory tests despite the fact that Florida’s new law, as predicted by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups, costs the taxpayers and the state of Florida much more money than it saves.
But, as we mentioned, Gingrich doesn’t stop at just forcing piss tests on desperate poor people. He also wants to kill drug dealers.
Newt supports the death penalty for “high-level drug smugglers,” admiring the “successful” and “draconian” policies of Singapore, a nation which regularly hangs people for marijuana. Anyone caught with more than 500 grams or cannabis, or 200 grams of hashish, is killed.
Apparently trying to talk out of both sides of his mouth at once, Gingrich also said while he is “very serious” in his desire to “minimize drug use in America,” he did not think throwing people in prison was the right approach. He claimed he favored medical help and drug addiction treatment (I guess that only applies if he doesn’t decide to kill you first for being a “drug dealer”).
Three of Gingrich’s rivals for the GOP nomination, businessman Herman Cain, Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, have endorsed allowing states to legalize medical marijuana without interference from the federal government — a position once taken, then heartily abandoned, by the Obama Administration.