Ron Paul Quotes.com 2006 Ron Paul Chapter 13 Ron Paul Quotes.com: Illegal Drug Problem — Part 2 9 March 2006 Home Page   Contents Congressional Record (Page H837)   Cached Not linked on Ron Paul’s Congressional website.

Illegal Drug Problem — Part 2 9 March 2006 2006 Ron Paul 13:1 Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining? The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas has 3 minutes remaining. 2006 Ron Paul 13:2 Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. 2006 Ron Paul 13:3 Mr. Chairman, earlier I mentioned that prohibition was a total failure with alcohol and that it is very similar, and I think the gentleman from Indiana helped make my point. He is a bit frustrated with the enforcement of the laws on the books, and for what reason I do not know, but we certainly ought to be frustrated with the results. But the laws are difficult to enforce and I understand and sense his frustration with this. 2006 Ron Paul 13:4 One of the major reasons why I object to this approach is not only the cost. The cost is pretty important and I think it is pretty important to realize it does not work very well, if at all; but we also ought to look at the damage done with our mistaken thoughts that this is doing a lot of good. 2006 Ron Paul 13:5 Once a war is declared, whether it is a war overseas or whether it is a domestic war on some evil here, that is when the American people should look out for their civil liberties. There, the issue of privacy is attacked. So now we have a war on terrorism and we have the PATRIOT Act and all these other things that intrude on the civil rights and civil liberties of Americans, and, at the same time, not achieving a whole lot of good results. 2006 Ron Paul 13:6 This is what happens when there is a war on. Those people who are trying to avoid taxes, all law-abiding citizens have to obey all these laws. So as soon as there is a war, look out for your civil liberties and your privacy. The war on drugs has done a great deal of harm to our right of privacy. 2006 Ron Paul 13:7 Once again, I agree with the argument, there are a great deal of problems in this country with the illegal use of drugs, but what I am saying is it does not help to have this type of a war on drugs because it tends to distort things. It raises prices artificially high. It causes all kind of ramifications that actually cause more killing and dying. This is why prohibition of alcohol was stopped, because people died from drinking bad alcohol, and the gangs sold the alcohol. The same thing happens today. 2006 Ron Paul 13:8 Like I mentioned, that student that lived in the country, and he was 16 years old, and there were no rules or laws against teenagers drinking beer or alcohol and there was no problem. Kids did not drink. It was not exciting to do it. So there is a certain element of truth to that. Kids smoking cigarettes is against the law. You sneak off and smoke cigarettes. That happens to be what teenagers do. 2006 Ron Paul 13:9 So no matter how well-intended legislation like this is, it tends to have too many unintended consequences, it costs too much money. And we fail to realize that we in this country live with a greater amount of personal liberty and respect for State and local law enforcement, we had less drug problems. Think about it. Through the latter part of the 18th century, the 19th century, the early part of the 20th century, essentially no laws, and we had a lot less problems. 2006 Ron Paul 13:10 Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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