U.S. Rep. Ron Paul | drug war |
drug war
Federal War On Drugs Bad Idea
5 May 1998 1998 Ron Paul 45:19
To dwell on the drug war and casually and carelessly violate civil liberties, as we so often do, and have confiscation and seizure of property that we just blow it off because we are fighting the drug war, I think we are going in the wrong direction. We need some new ideas and new proposals on this drug war. I hope today to have time to make some of these suggestions on what we might do about the drug war.
drug war
Federal War On Drugs Bad Idea
5 May 1998 1998 Ron Paul 45:20
Former HEW Secretary Joseph Califano said, not too long ago, he was comparing the drug war to the problem of alcohol, he said: The drug war is a grain of sand compared to alcohol.
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Wasting Money On War On Drugs
5 May 1998 1998 Ron Paul 46:18
Again, we cannot distract from the serious problem of the drug war, but I do beg and plead for my colleagues to just look at the truth. Let us read the news carefully, let us look at the Constitution, like we do when it is convenient, and let us consider another option. It cannot be any worse than what we are doing.
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Drug-Free Workplace Act
23 June 1998 1998 Ron Paul 63:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 3853, The Drug-Free Workplace Act. Certainly there are many things the Federal Government can do to minimize the negative impact illicit drug users have upon society. Further expanding a philosophically bankrupt national drug war policy with the creation of yet another costly federally-funded program is not the answer.
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A Republic, If You Can Keep It – Part 2
2 February 2000 2000 Ron Paul 5:49
Tobacco is about to be categorized as a drug and prohibition of sorts imposed. This will make the drug war seem small if we continue to expand the tobacco war. Talk about insane government policies of the 20th century, tobacco policy wins the prize. First, we subsidize tobacco in response to demands by the special interests, knowing full well even from the beginning that tobacco had many negative health consequences. Then we spend taxpayers’ money warning the people of its dangers, without stopping the subsidies.
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2000 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT
March 29, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 21:2
It is said that we need to appropriate this money to fight the drug war in Colombia. We have been fighting the drug war for 25 years. We have spent $250 billion on the drug war. Some day we will have to wake up and decide that the way we are fighting the drug war is wrong.
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Fiscal 2000 Supplemental Appropriations/DEA Funding Cuts Amendment
30 March 2000 2000 Ron Paul 23:3
I do not believe for one minute this is a surrender to the drug war. This is an acknowledgment that the $250 billion we have spent over the last 25 years has not worked; that the strategy against drugs is wrong.
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Minding Our Own Business Regarding Colombia Is In The Best Interest Of America
September 6, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 69:1
Mr. Speaker, those of us who warned of the shortcomings of expanding our military presence in Colombia were ignored when funds were appropriated for this purpose earlier this year. We argued at that time that clearly no national security interests were involved; that the Civil War was more than 30 years old, complex with three factions fighting, and no assurance as to who the good guys were; that the drug war was a subterfuge, only an excuse, not a reason, to needlessly expand our involvement in Colombia; and that special interests were really driving our policy: Colombia Oil Reserves owned by American interests, American weapons manufacturers, and American corporations anxious to build infrastructure in Colombia.
drug war
Minding Our Own Business Regarding Colombia Is In The Best Interest Of America
September 6, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 69:6
Our policy, unless quickly and thoroughly reversed, will surely force an escalation of the civil war and a dangerous increase in our involvement with both dollars and troops. All this will further heighten the need for drug sales to finance all factions of the civil war. So much for stopping the drug war.
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THREATS TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM
October 19, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 88:17
As part of the drug war that progressed and expanded (but is never victorious), the catch all crime of ‘money laundering’ was invented: an all purpose federal prosecutors’ dream. The anti-money laundering statutes that have grown like a malignancy. Charges of money laundering now routinely are shown in with almost every possible criminal indictment, often as a bargaining chip and/or a means to confiscate the wealth of the accused even before trial. Try hiring a good defense attorney when your bank account has been frozen.
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OUR FOOLISH WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST
November 15, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 95:14
* Our many failures in the last fifty years should prompt us to reassess our entire foreign policy of interventionism. The notion that since we are the only superpower left we have an obligation to tell everybody else how to live should come an end. Our failure in Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, and the Middle East, and our failure yet come to in Bosnia and Kosovo should alert all Americans to this great danger. But no, we instead continue to expand our intervention by further involving ourselves in yet another sovereign nation. This time it’s Columbia. By sending more weapons into the region we continue to stir up this 30-year civil conflict. And just recently this conflict has spilled over into Venezuela, a major force in South America due to its oil reserves. The Foreign Minister of Venezuela, angered by U.S. actions, recently warned that “any ship or boat which enters the Gulf of Venezuela, of whatever nationality it may be, will be expelled.” Our intervention in many of these regions, and especially in South America, has been done in the name of the drug war. But the truth is it’s serving the interests of the companies who own the oil rights in this region, as well as those who produce the weapons that get sent into these regions.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:102
Venezuela, rich in oil, is quite nervous about our enhanced presence in the region. Their foreign minister stated that if any of our ships enter the Gulf of Venezuela they will be expelled . This statement was prompted by an overly aggressive US Coast Guard vessel’s intrusion into Venezuelan territorial waters on a drug expedition. I know of no one who believes this expanded and insane drug war will do anything to dampen drug usage in the United States. Yet it will cost us plenty. Too bad our political leaders cannot take a hint. The war effort in Colombia is small now, but under current conditions it will surely escalate. This is a 30-year-old civil war being fought in the jungles of South America. We are unwelcome by many, and we ought to have enough sense to stay out of it. Recently new policy has led to the spraying of herbicides to destroy the coca fields. It’s already been reported that the legal crops in nearby fields have been destroyed as well. This is no way to win friends around the world.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:119
The ill-conceived drug war of the past 30 years has caused great harm to our society. It has undermined privacy and challenged the constitutional rights of all our citizens. The accelerated attack on drug usage since the early 1970s has not resulted in any material benefit. Over $300 billion has been spent on this war, and we are all less free and poorer because of it. Civil liberties are sacrificed in all wars, both domestic and foreign. It’s clear that, even if it were a legitimate function for government to curtail drug usage, eliminating bad habits through government regulation is not achievable. Like so much else that government tries to do, the harm done is not always evenly distributed. Some groups suffer more than others, further compounding the problem by causing dissention and distrust.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:121
There are ten times the number of prisoners for drug offenses than there were in 1980, and 80% of the drug arrests are for non-violent possession. In spite of all the money spent and energy wasted, drug usage continues at a record pace. Someday we must wake up and realize the federal drug war is a farce. It has failed and we must change our approach.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:122
As bad as drug addiction is and the harm it causes, it is miniscule compared to the dollar cost, the loss of liberty, and social conflict that results from our ill-advised drug war.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:123
Mandatory drug sentencing laws have done a great deal of harm by limiting the discretion that judges could use in sentencing victims in the drug war. Congress should repeal or change these laws, just as we found it beneficial to modify seizure and forfeiture laws two years ago.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:125
There are no documented benefits from the drug war. Even if a reduction in drug usage could have been achieved, the cost in dollars and loss of liberty would never have justified it. But we don’t have that to deal with, since drug usage continues to get worse; in addition we have all the problems associated with the drug war.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:127
Seizure and forfeiture laws, clearly in violation of the Constitution, have served as a terrible incentive for many police departments to raise money for law-enforcement projects outside the normal budgeting process. Nationalizing the police force for various reasons is a trend that should frighten all Americans. The drug war has been the most important factor in this trend.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:130
An interventionist government, by its nature, uses any excuse to know what the people are doing. Drug laws are used to enhance the IRS agent’s ability to collect every dime owed the government. These laws are used to pressure Congress to spend more dollars for foreign military operations in places such as Colombia. Artificially high drug prices allow government to clandestinely participate in the drug trade to raise funds to fight the secret controversial wars with off-budget funding. Both our friends and foes depend on the drug war at times for revenue to pursue their causes, which frequently are the same as ours.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:132
The notion that the Federal government has an obligation to protect us from ourselves drives the drug war. But this idea also drives the do-gooders in Washington to involve themselves in every aspect of our lives. American citizens cannot move without being constantly reminded by consumer advocates, environmentalists, safety experts, and bureaucratic busybodies what they can or cannot do.
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POTENTIAL FOR WAR
February 08, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 10:33
Venezuela, rich in oil, is quite nervous about our enhanced presence in the region. Their foreign minister stated that if any of our ships enter the Gulf of Venezuela, they will be expelled. This statement was prompted by an overly aggressive U.S. Coast Guard vessel intrusion into Venezuela’s territorial waters on a drug expedition. I know of no one who believes this expanded and insane drug war will do anything to dampen drug usage in the United States, yet it will cost us plenty.
drug war
POTENTIAL FOR WAR
February 08, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 10:54
The ill-conceived drug war of the past 30 years has caused great harm to our society. It has undermined privacy and challenged the constitutional rights of all our citizens. The accelerated attack on drug usage seen since the early 1970s has not resulted in any material benefit. Over $300 billion has been spent on this war, and we are less free and poorer because of it. Civil liberties are sacrificed in all wars, both domestic and foreign.
drug war
POTENTIAL FOR WAR
February 08, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 10:59
Some day we must wake up and realize the Federal drug war is a farce, it has failed, and we must change our approach.
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POTENTIAL FOR WAR
February 08, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 10:60
As bad as drug addiction is and the harm it causes, it is minuscule compared to the dollar cost, the loss of liberty and social conflict that results from our ill-advised drug war.
drug war
POTENTIAL FOR WAR
February 08, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 10:61
Mandatory drug sentencing have done a great deal of harm by limiting the discretion that judges could use in sentencing victims in this drug war. Congress should repeal or change these laws just as we found it beneficial to modify seizure and for forfeiture laws 2 years ago. The drug laws, I am sure, were never meant to be discriminatory. Yet they are.
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POTENTIAL FOR WAR
February 08, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 10:64
There are no documented benefits from the drug war. Even if reduction in drug usage could have been achieved, the cost in dollars and loss of liberty would never have justified it. But we do not have that to deal with since drug usage continues to get worse.
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POTENTIAL FOR WAR
February 08, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 10:65
In addition, we have all the problems associated with the drug war. The effort to diminish the use of drugs and to improve the personal habits of some of our citizens has been the excuse to undermine our freedoms.
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POTENTIAL FOR WAR
February 08, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 10:67
Seizure and forfeiture laws, clearly in violation of the Constitution, have served as a terrible incentive for many police departments to raise money for law enforcement projects outside the normal budgeting process. Nationalizing the police force for various reasons is a trend that should frighten all Americans. The drug war has been the most important factor in this trend.
drug war
POTENTIAL FOR WAR
February 08, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 10:71
An interventionist government, by its nature, uses any excuse to know what the people are doing. Drug laws are used to enhance the IRS agent’s ability to collect every dime owed the government. These laws are used to pressure Congress to use more dollars for foreign military operations in places, such as Colombia. Artificially high drug prices allow governments to clandestinely participate in the drug trade to raise funds to fight the secret controversial wars with off-budget funding. Both our friends and foes depend on the drug war at times for revenue to pursue their causes, which frequently are the same as ours.
drug war
POTENTIAL FOR WAR
February 08, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 10:73
The notion that the Federal Government has an obligation to protect us from ourselves drives the drug war. But this idea also drives the do-gooders in Washington to involve themselves in every aspect of our lives.
drug war
A SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS --
October 25, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 90:32
I would like to draw analogy between the drug war and the war against terrorism. In the last 30 years, we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on a failed war on drugs. This war has been used as an excuse to attack our liberties and privacy. It has been an excuse to undermine our financial privacy while promoting illegal searches and seizures with many innocent people losing their lives and property. Seizure and forfeiture have harmed a great number of innocent American citizens.
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A SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS --
October 25, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 90:35
Illegal and artificially high priced drugs drive the underworld to produce, sell and profit from this social depravity. Failure to recognize that drug addiction, like alcoholism, is a disease rather than a crime, encourage the drug warriors in efforts that have not and will not ever work. We learned the hard way about alcohol prohibition and crime, but we have not yet seriously considered it in the ongoing drug war.
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A SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS --
October 25, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 90:38
For the first 140 years of our history, we had essentially no Federal war on drugs, and far fewer problems with drug addiction and related crimes was a consequence. In the past 30 years, even with the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the drug war, little good has come of it. We have vacillated from efforts to stop the drugs at the source to severely punishing the users, yet nothing has improved.
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A SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS --
October 25, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 90:40
The drug war encourages violence. Government violence against nonviolent users is notorious and has led to the unnecessary prison overpopulation. Innocent taxpayers are forced to pay for all this so-called justice. Our drug eradication project (using spraying) around the world, from Colombia to Afghanistan, breeds resentment because normal crops and good land can be severely damaged. Local populations perceive that the efforts and the profiteering remain somehow beneficial to our own agenda in these various countries.
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A SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS --
October 25, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 90:44
The same is true in dealing with those who so passionately hate us that suicide becomes a just and noble cause in their effort to kill and terrorize us. Without some understanding of what has brought us to the brink of a worldwide conflict, and reconsideration of our policies around the globe, we will be no more successful in making our land secure and free than the drug war has been in removing drug violence from our cities and towns.
drug war
The War On Terrorism
November 29, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 98:47
Granting bailouts is not new for Congress, but current conditions have prompted many takers to line up for handouts. There has always been a large constituency for expanding federal power for whatever reason, and these groups have been energized. The military-industrial complex is out in full force and is optimistic. Union power is pleased with recent events and has not missed the opportunity to increase membership rolls. Federal policing powers, already in a bull market, received a super shot in the arm. The IRS, which detests financial privacy, gloats, while all the big spenders in Washington applaud the tools made available to crack down on tax dodgers. The drug warriors and anti-gun zealots love the new powers that now can be used to watch the every move of our citizens. “Extremists” who talk of the Constitution, promote right-to-life, form citizen militias, or participate in non-mainstream religious practices now can be monitored much more effectively by those who find their views offensive. Laws recently passed by the Congress apply to all Americans- not just terrorists. But we should remember that if the terrorists are known and identified, existing laws would have been quite adequate to deal with them.
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The War On Terrorism
November 29, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 98:51
We know from the ongoing drug war that federal drug police frequently make mistakes, break down the wrong doors and destroy property. Abuses of seizure and forfeiture laws are numerous. Yet the new laws will encourage even more mistakes by federal law-enforcement agencies. It has long been forgotten that law enforcement in the United States was supposed to be a state and local government responsibility, not that of the federal government. The federal government’s policing powers have just gotten a giant boost in scope and authority through both new legislation and executive orders.
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Don’t Force Taxpayers to Fund Nation-Building in Afghanistan
May 21, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 43:11
Among other harmful things, this legislation dramatically expands the drug war. Under the group we have installed in Afghanistan, opium production has skyrocketed. Now we are expected to go in and clean up the mess our allies have created. In addition, this bill will send some $60 million to the United Nations, to help fund its own drug eradication program. I am sure most Americans agree that we already send the United Nations too much of our tax money, yet this bill commits us to sending even more.
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Don’t Force Taxpayers to Fund Nation-Building in Afghanistan
May 21, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 43:12
The drug war has been a failure. Plan Colombia, an enormously expensive attempt to reduce drug production in that Andean nation, has actually resulted in a 25 percent increase in coca leaf and cocaine production. Does anyone still think our war on drugs there has been successful? Is it responsible to continue spending money on policies that do not work?
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No More Taxpayer Funds for the Failed Drug War in Colombia
May 23, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 49:7
So I would say, please, take a close look at this. We do not need to be expanding our role in Colombia. The drug war down there has not worked, and I do not expect this military war that we are about to wage to work either. We need to talk about national defense, and this does not help our national defense. I fear this. I feel less secure when we go into areas like this, because believe me, this is the way that we get troops in later on. We already have advisory forces in Colombia. Does anybody remember about advisors and then eventually having military follow in other times in our history. Yes, this is a very risky change in policy. This is not just a minor little increase in appropriation.
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Oppose the "Supplemental" Spending Bill
May 24, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 50:3
Even much of the military spending in this bill has no relationship to legitimate national security needs. Instead it furthers an interventionist foreign policy which is neither constitutional nor in the best interests of the American people. For example, this supplemental contains a stealth attempt to shift our policy toward Colombia, expanding our already failed drug war to include direct participation in Colombia’s 38-year civil war. Though a bill on Colombia was scheduled for markup in the International Relations committee, for some reason it was pulled at the last minute. Therefore, the committee has not been able to debate this policy shift on Colombia. We are instead expected just not to notice, I suppose, that the policy shift has been included in this bill.
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Unintended Consequences of the Drug War
June 27, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 65:10
But all those things are unintended consequences of the war on drugs. Drug use is eventually a self-punishing mistake; the drug war turns out to be the same.
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Republic Versus Democracy
29 January 2003 2003 Ron Paul 6:103
The results, though, are frightening and will soon even become more so. Poverty has been made worse. The drug war is a bigger threat than drug use. Terrorism remains a threat, and foreign wars have become routine and decided upon without congressional approval.
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Neo – CONNED !
July 10, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 73:12
The remnant’s instincts were correct, and the politicians placated them with talk of free markets, limited government, and a humble, non-nation-building foreign policy. However, little concern for civil liberties was expressed in this recent quest for less government. Yet, for an ultimate victory of achieving freedom, this must change. Interest in personal privacy and choices has generally remained outside the concern of many conservatives—especially with the great harm done by their support of the drug war. Even though some confusion has emerged over our foreign policy since the breakdown of the Soviet empire, it’s been a net benefit in getting some conservatives back on track with a less militaristic, interventionist foreign policy. Unfortunately, after 9-ll, the cause of liberty suffered a setback. As a result, millions of Americans voted for the less-than-perfect conservative revolution because they believed in the promises of the politicians.
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Medicinal Marijuana
22 July 2003 2003 Ron Paul 89:7
There are more people who die from the use of legal drugs than illegal drugs. Just think of that. More people die from the use of legal drugs; and also, there are more deaths from the drug war than there are from deaths from using the illegal drugs. So it has gotten out of control. But the whole idea that a person who is dying, a physician cannot even prescribe something that might help them. The terrible irony of Peter McDaniels was that he died because of vomiting, something that could have and had only been curtailed by the use of marijuana. No other medication had helped; and we, the Federal Government, go in there and deny this and defy the State law, the State law of California.
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Conference Report On H.R. 2417 Intelligence Authorization Act For Fiscal year 2004
20 November 2003 2003 Ron Paul 121:4
I am also concerned that our scarce resources are again being squandered pursuing a failed drug war in Colombia, as this bill continues to fund our disastrous Colombia policy. Billions of dollars have been spent in Colombia to fight this drug war, yet more drugs than ever are being produced abroad and shipped into the United States — including a bumper crop of opium sent by our new allies in Afghanistan. Evidence in South America suggests that any decrease in Colombian production of drugs for the US market has only resulted in increased production in neighboring countries. As I have stated repeatedly, the solution to the drug problem lies not in attacking the producers abroad or in creating a militarized police state to go after the consumers at home, but rather in taking a close look at our seemingly insatiable desire for these substances. Until that issue is addressed we will continue wasting billions of dollars in a losing battle.
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A Wise Consistency
February 11, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 2:14
Alcohol Prohibition—For Our Own Protection : Alcohol prohibition was a foolish consistency engaged in for over a decade, but we finally woke up to the harm done. In spite of prohibition, drinking continued. The alcohol being produced in the underground was much more deadly, and related crime ran rampant. The facts stared us in the face, and with time, we had the intelligence to repeal the whole experiment. No matter how logical this reversal of policy was, it did not prevent us from moving into the area of drug prohibition, now in the more radical stages, for the past 30 years. No matter the amount of harm and cost involved, very few in public life are willing to advise a new approach to drug addiction. Alcoholism is viewed as a medical problem, but illicit drug addiction is seen as a heinous crime. Our prisons overflow, with the cost of enforcement now into the hundreds of billions of dollars, yet drug use is not reduced. Nevertheless, the politicians are consistent. They are convinced that a tough stand against usage with very strict laws and mandatory sentences — sometimes life sentences for non-violent offenses — is a popular political stand. Facts don’t count, and we can’t bend on consistently throwing the book at any drug offenders. Our prisons are flooded with non-violent drug users — 84% of all federals prisoners — but no serious reassessment is considered. Sadly, the current war on drugs has done tremendous harm to many patients’ need for legitimate prescribed pain control. Doctors are very often compromised in their ability to care for the seriously and terminally ill by overzealous law enforcement. Throughout most of our history, drugs were legal and at times were abused. But during that time, there was no history of the social and legal chaos associated with drug use that we suffer today. A hundred years ago, a pharmacist openly advertised, “Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and the bowels and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.” Obviously this is overstated as a medical panacea, but it describes what it was like not to have hysterical busybodies undermine our Constitution and waste billions of dollars on a drug war serving no useful purpose. This country needs to wake up! We should have more confidence in citizens making their own decisions, and decide once again to repeal federal prohibition, while permitting regulation by the states alone.
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Federal War On Drugs Threatens The Effective Treatment Of Chronic Pain
11 February 2004 2004 Ron Paul 4:10
Finally, as the Limbaugh case reveals, the prosecution of pain management physicians destroys the medical privacy of all chronic pain patients. Under the guise of prosecuting the drug war, law enforcement officials can rummage through patients’ personal medical records and, as may be the case with Mr. Limbaugh, use information uncovered to settle personal or political scores. I am pleased that AAPS, along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), has joined the effort to protect Mr. Limbaugh’s medical records.
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Rush Limbaugh and the Sick Federal War on Pain Relief
February 12, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 5:1
Mr. Speaker, the publicity surrounding popular radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s legal troubles relating to his use of the pain killer OxyContin hopefully will focus public attention on how the federal drug war threatens the effective treatment of chronic pain. Prosecutors have seized Mr. Limbaugh’s medical records to investigate whether he violated federal drug laws. The fact that Mr. Limbaugh is a high profile, controversial, conservative media personality has given rise to speculation that the prosecution is politically motivated. Adding to this suspicion is the fact that individual pain patients are rarely prosecuted in this type of case.
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Rush Limbaugh and the Sick Federal War on Pain Relief
February 12, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 5:10
Finally, as the Limbaugh case reveals, the prosecution of pain management physicians destroys the medical privacy of all chronic pain patients. Under the guise of prosecuting the drug war, law enforcement officials can rummage through patients’ personal medical records and, as may be the case with Mr. Limbaugh, use information uncovered to settle personal or political scores. I am pleased that AAPS, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, has joined the effort to protect Mr. Limbaugh’s medical records.
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H. Res. 412 Honoring Men And Women Of The Drug Enforcement Administration — Part 1
3 March 2004 2004 Ron Paul 10:12
We have civil liberty consequences as well. We set the stage for gangsters and terrorists raising money by making weeds and wild plants and flowers illegal. If someone could say and show me all of a sudden that the American people use a lot less drugs and kids are never tempted, it would be a better case; but we do not have the evidence. We have no evidence to show that 30 years of this drug war has done very much good. Matter of fact, all studies of the DARE program show that the DARE program has not encouraged kids to use less illegal drugs. So there is quite a few reasons why we ought not to just glibly say to the DEA it’s been a wonderful 30 years and encourage more of it.
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H. Res. 412 Honoring Men And Women Of The Drug Enforcement Administration — Part 1
3 March 2004 2004 Ron Paul 10:13
The second part of the resolution talks about the sacrifice of these men. To me, it is a tragedy. Why should we ever have a policy where men have to sacrifice themselves? I do not believe it is necessary. We gave up on the prohibition of alcohol. I believe the drug war ought to be fought, but in a much different manner.
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H. Res. 412 Honoring Men And Women Of The Drug Enforcement Administration — Part 2
3 March 2004 2004 Ron Paul 11:3
Regarding the loss of lives, whether it is 3,000 that some report, or 20,000, many of those would be preventable if we did not have the drug wars going on. The drug wars go on because people are fighting for turf and then the police have to go in and try to stop them because prices are artificially high. We have created the incentive for drug violence. We take something worthless and make it worth billions of dollars. We set the stage for terrorists.
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H. Res. 412 Honoring Men And Women Of The Drug Enforcement Administration — Part 2
3 March 2004 2004 Ron Paul 11:4
Right now, because of the policies in Afghanistan, 80 percent of Afghanistan now has been returned to the drug lords. If the drugs were worthless, there would be no incentive to promote them. But they are worth a lot of money, so inadvertently our drug war pushes the prices up, and we create the incentive for the Taliban and others to raise the poppies and send the drugs over here. Then they finance the terrorists. So it is an unintended consequence that does not make any sense. It does not have to happen.
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H. Res. 412 Honoring Men And Women Of The Drug Enforcement Administration — Part 2
3 March 2004 2004 Ron Paul 11:14
Let me tell Members, there is a politically popular position in this country that many are not aware of: The tragedy of so many families seeing their loved ones die and suffer without adequate care, 90-year-old people dying of cancer and nurses and doctors intimidated and saying we cannot make them a drug addict. This drug war culture that we live with has done a lot of harm in the practice of medicine. Attacking the physicians who prescribe pain medicine and taking their licenses from them is reprehensible. I ask Members to please reconsider, not so much what we do today, but in the future, maybe we will wake up and decide there is a better way to teach good habits to American citizens.
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Reject a National Prescription Database
October 5, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 74:5
A doctor who is willing to treat chronic pain patients with medically justified amounts of controlled substances may appear at first look to be excessively prescribing. Because so few doctors are willing to take the drug war prosecution risks associated with treating chronic pain patients, and because chronic pain patients must often consume significant doses of pain medication to obtain relief, the prosecution of one pain doctor can be heralded as a large success. All the government needs to do is point to the large amount of patients and drugs associated with a medical practice.
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Reject a National Prescription Database
October 5, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 74:6
Once doctors know that there is a national database of controlled substances prescriptions that overzealous law enforcement will be scrutinizing to harass doctors, there may be no doctors left who are willing to treat chronic pain. Instead of creating a national database, we should be returning medical regulation to local control, where it historically and constitutionally belongs. Instead of drug warriors regulating medicine with an eye to maximizing prosecutions, we should return to state medical boards and state civil courts review that looks to science-based standards of medical care and patients’ best interests.
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Foreign Aid
28 June 2005 2005 Ron Paul 81:5
I was here in 2000 when this debate was going on and strongly opposed it for various reasons, but I remember the pretext for Plan Colombia. The pretext was the drug war and this is what we have heard about today. The evidence is very flimsy. If there was any success on the drug war, production would be down and prices would be up. Production is up and prices are down, and that is an economic absolute.
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Plan Colombia
25 April 2006 2006 Ron Paul 24:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the following article detailing the complete failure of “Plan Colombia” into the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. As the article points out, despite more than 4 billion dollars being sent to Colombia to fight the “war on drugs,” the coca crop grew by 21 percent last year. After six years of massive wealth transfers from U.S. taxpayers to the Colombian government, not only has no progress been made, but in fact things are getting worse. Unfortunately, with the way things are done in Washington, this failure of “Plan Colombia” will likely result in calls for even more money to be tossed in the black hole of the drug war. It would be far better to learn from our mistakes and abandon the failed “Plan Colombia.”
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Plan Colombia
25 April 2006 2006 Ron Paul 24:15
What’s more, she said, cheap, potent cocaine remains readily available on U.S. streets, indicating that the drug war in Colombia is having little real impact.
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Plan Colombia
25 April 2006 2006 Ron Paul 24:21
Beyond the drug war, Patterson said, the overall U.S. aid program “has benefited Colombia in ways we had not anticipated.”
drug war
Too Much Waste In Defense Appropriation Bill
20 June 2006 2006 Ron Paul 46:3
The bill manages to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on foreign aid — $372 million to Russia, for example — and the failed drug war, but it fails to address the real problems of a military force that has been seriously stretched and challenged by an unprecedented level of sustained deployment overseas. I urge my colleagues to support a defense spending bill that really puts defense of the United States first.
drug war
Let People Decide Whether To Use Tobacco
June 12, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 66:2
Madam Speaker, I don’t think anybody can argue at all with the intentions of the proposal of this bill. There is no question that cigarettes are very harmful. The question for me here is the process, and I find the process here atrocious because it assumes that authoritarianism is right, proper and that it works and that volunteerism, education, self-reliance and depending on oneself to take care of oneself is a proper approach. We totally reject our free society and assume that if we just have tobacco police roaming the country, that all of a sudden bad habits are going to be cleared up. We’re dealing with bad habits, and these are bad for health. But let me tell you, I can bring you a list here of dozens and dozens of bad habits that lead to death. As a matter of fact, one of the things that we ought to consider is, how many people die from our drug war? We have a drug war, and about 3,000 people die from the use of illegal drugs. So we have a drug war going on, and tens of thousands of people die.
drug war
Last-Minute Supplemental Spending is Dangerous and Unnecessary
10 July 2000 Texas Straight Talk 10 July 2000 verse 5 ... Cached
The supplemental spending bill is dangerous, wasteful and unnecessary. Every year Congress decides midway through its fiscal year that it didn't budget enough money, so it creates an "emergency" to justify new spending. This year the "emergency" requires that we spend more on the failed drug war and more on sending our troops overseas. The big spenders in Congress made certain the supplemental bill was packaged with a Military Construction bill, which insured its passage during eleventh-hour voting. Congress already spends far too much money, and this additional $11 billion in spending cannot be justified.
drug war
Last-Minute Supplemental Spending is Dangerous and Unnecessary
10 July 2000 Texas Straight Talk 10 July 2000 verse 6 ... Cached
Worse yet, much of the spending contained in the supplemental bill goes overseas. Several South American countries, including Colombia, Bolivia, and Ecuador receive a total of $1.3 billion taxpayer dollars. Colombia alone receives approximately half a billion dollars for costly helicopters and U.S. training of its police and military forces in "counternarcotics" activities. I find this a particularly dangerous and expensive proposition. Our nation should not be spending billions of dollars and sending 60 military helicopters to the Colombian Army and National Police to escalate our failed drug war. We risk another Nicaragua when we meddle in the internal politics and military activities of a foreign nation. Sending expensive helicopters to Colombia is the worst kind of pork-barrel politics- helicopters are ineffective weapons of war, as we have seen in Vietnam and Somalia. The American people are tired of paying their tax dollars to fund expensive toys for foreign governments. Taxpayers should demand that Congress demonstrate the national interest served before it sends billions to foreign nations.
drug war
The Fight for Medical Privacy Continues in Washington
26 March 2001 Texas Straight Talk 26 March 2001 verse 3 ... Cached
Medical privacy advocates enjoyed a victory last week when the Supreme Court ruled that a government hospital in South Carolina violated the constitutional rights of pregnant women by testing them for drugs without their consent. The hospital ostensibly began the testing program because of concerns about increasing cocaine use by pregnant patients, but if the hospital was concerned only with patient and fetus health, why were test results turned over to law enforcement? Several women were arrested and put in jail because of the tests, with their newborns presumably taken away to become wards of the state. Not surprisingly, the rationale for this terrible violation of doctor-patient confidentiality was the drug war. The real tragedy of this case is that it may cause pregnant women to conceal illegal drug use from their doctors out of fear of arrest. How many babies will be misdiagnosed or go untreated because their mothers no longer have any medical privacy?
drug war
The Fight for Medical Privacy Continues in Washington
26 March 2001 Texas Straight Talk 26 March 2001 verse 4 ... Cached
Fortunately, the Supreme Court upheld the Fourth amendment in ruling against the hospital. The drug war has been used for too long as an excuse for unconstitutional actions by government. The Fourth and Fifth amendment prohibitions against unreasonable searches and compelled testimony routinely are ignored by legislators, law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, and especially federal agencies. As a result, all Americans have suffered the loss of liberties guaranteed to them in the Bill of Rights.
drug war
The Fight for Medical Privacy Continues in Washington
26 March 2001 Texas Straight Talk 26 March 2001 verse 5 ... Cached
As a physician, I cannot imagine providing my patients' medical records to police as evidence for a criminal prosecution. Like most doctors, I adhere to a strict policy of maintaining patient confidentiality. Medical privacy has existed for centuries between doctors and patients, without government interference. However, the drug war has provided the ever-growing federal government with new justifications to invade your once-private medical history.
drug war
The Fight for Medical Privacy Continues in Washington
26 March 2001 Texas Straight Talk 26 March 2001 verse 6 ... Cached
Unfortunately, the drug war is not the only threat to your medical privacy. Medical privacy also is under assault by Washington health bureaucrats. The federal government wants greater access to your private medical records than ever before. On April 14, the department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is scheduled to implement invasive new medical rules written during the Clinton administration. The proposed rules require doctors and other health care providers to give patient records to the federal government for very broadly defined purposes and without patient consent. The rules grant law enforcement access to patient records without a search warrant. Patients will have only limited knowledge of who sees their records, and individuals will not be able to sue health care providers or the government for breaches of privacy. Ultimately, your medical history will be readily available to any government agency that wishes to create a national medical database.
drug war
Congress Sends Billions Overseas
23 July 2001 Texas Straight Talk 23 July 2001 verse 7 ... Cached
o $676 million to continue the failed drug war in Colombia. Time and time again, we have seen our drug interdiction escalate violence in Latin American countries. Our military aid could easily spark a war.
drug war
U.S. Taxpayers send Billions to our Enemies in Afghanistan
05 November 2001 Texas Straight Talk 05 November 2001 verse 7 ... Cached
Incredibly, in May the U.S. announced that we would reward the Taliban with an additional $43 million in aid for its actions in banning the cultivation of poppy used to produce heroin and opium. Taliban rulers had agreed to assist us in our senseless drug war by declaring opium growing "against the will of God." They weren't serious, of course. Although reliable economic data for Afghanistan is nearly impossible to find (there simply is not much of an economy), the reality is that opium is far and away the most profitable industry in the country. The Taliban was hardly prepared to give up virtually its only source of export revenue, any more than the demand for opium was suddenly going to disappear. If anything, Afghanistan's production of opium is growing. Experts estimate it has doubled since 1999; the relatively small country is now believed to provide the raw material for fully 75% of the world's heroin. How tragic that our government was willing to ignore Taliban brutality in its quest to find "victories" in the failed drug war.
drug war
Homeland Security is the Largest Federal Expansion in 50 Years
25 November 2002 Texas Straight Talk 25 November 2002 verse 5 ... Cached
Of course the Homeland Security bill did receive some opposition from the President’s critics. Yet did they attack the legislation because it threatens to debase the 4th amendment and create an Orwellian surveillance society? Did they attack it because it will chill political dissent or expand the drug war? No, they attacked it on the grounds that it failed to secure enough high-paying federal union jobs, thus angering one of Washington’s most powerful special interest groups. Ultimately, however, even the most prominent critics voted for the bill.
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The Federal War on Pain Relief
19 April 2004 Texas Straight Talk 19 April 2004 verse 2 ... Cached
The controversy surrounding popular radio host Rush Limbaugh’s use of the painkiller OxyContin hopefully will focus public attention on how the federal drug war threatens the effective treatment of chronic pain. In most cases patients are not high profile celebrities like Mr. Limbaugh, so doctors become the target of overzealous federal prosecutors. Faced with the failure of the war on drugs to eliminate drug cartels and kingpins, prosecutors and police have turned their attention to ordinary doctors prescribing perfectly legal drugs. Federal statutes designed for the prosecution of drug dealers are being abused to ensnare innocent doctors.
drug war
The Federal War on Pain Relief
19 April 2004 Texas Straight Talk 19 April 2004 verse 8 ... Cached
The sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship is being destroyed by federal bureaucrats, who have turned the drug war into a war on pain relief. Americans suffering from chronic pain and their doctors are the real victims of this unprincipled and medically unsound federal campaign.
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The War on Drugs is a War on Doctors
17 May 2004 Texas Straight Talk 17 May 2004 verse 2 ... Cached
When we talk about the federal war on drugs, most people conjure up visions of sinister South American drug cartels or violent urban street gangs. The emerging face of the drug war, however, is not a gangster or a junkie: It’s your friendly personal physician in a white coat. Faced with their ongoing failure to curtail the illegal drug trade, federal drug agencies have found an easier target in ordinary doctors whose only crime is prescribing perfectly legal pain medication. By applying federal statutes intended for drug dealers, federal prosecutors are waging a senseless and destructive war on doctors. The real victims of the new campaign are not only doctors, but their patients as well.
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The War on Drugs is a War on Doctors
17 May 2004 Texas Straight Talk 17 May 2004 verse 4 ... Cached
Even if Dr. Knox is acquitted of all charges, his life will never be the same. His professional reputation and clientele cannot be easily restored, and the enormous legal bills cannot be easily repaid. So whether federal prosecutors obtain a conviction of Dr. Knox or not, the message sent to other doctors is chillingly clear: prescribe the wrong drugs and we will destroy you. The end result is that doctors become afraid to prescribe pain medication, no matter how appropriate for a patient. The judgment of doctors has been replaced by the judgment of federal drug warriors.
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The War on Drugs is a War on Doctors
17 May 2004 Texas Straight Talk 17 May 2004 verse 5 ... Cached
Those who support the war on drugs may well change their views if one day they find themselves experiencing serious pain because of an accident or old age. By creating an atmosphere that regards all powerful pain medication as suspect, the drug warriors have forced countless Americans to live degraded, bedridden lives. Even elderly deathbed patients sometimes are denied adequate pain relief from reluctant doctors and nurses. It’s one thing to support a faraway drug campaign in Colombia or Afghanistan, but it’s quite another to watch a loved one suffering acute pain that could be treated. A sane, compassionate society views advances in medical science- particularly advances that relieve great suffering- as heroic. Instead, our barbaric drug war treats pain patients the same way it treats street junkies.
Texas Straight Talk from 20 December 1996 to 23 June 2008 (573 editions) are included in this Concordance. Texas Straight Talk after 23 June 2008 is in blog form on Rep. Paul’s Congressional website and is not included in this Concordance.
Remember, not everything in the concordance is Ron Paul’s words. Some things he quoted, and he added some newspaper and magazine articles to the Congressional Record. Check the original speech to see.