And then President Obama, and then George W. Bush, and then Bill Clinton . . .
In 2007, 872,721 Americans were arrested for marijuana violations, 775,138 of them for possession. Some number of the latter undoubtedly were caught growing or selling and were charged with lesser offenses, but, in any case, hundreds of thousands of Americans ended up in jail for doing precisely what Michael Phelps did: lighting up. Roughly three-quarters of those arrested for marijuana offenses were, like Phelps, under 30. With most of their lives ahead of them, they face the greatest harm from prosecution under the drug laws.
So why shouldn’t Phelps go to jail?
To ask the question is to answer it...
Key quote: Whether marijuana use is good or bad is not the issue. Short of engaging in behavior that directly threatens others, people should be left alone. That’s what a society grounded in individual liberty is—or at least should be—all about.
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