Daily Bell: What do
you think of drug legalization? Is it a good idea to legalize marijuana? How
about other drugs?
Ron Paul: I don’t
look at it in that narrow sense. I look at it in the broad sense of legalizing
freedom, the freedom of choice, and that includes everything that you put into
your body, everything that you put into your soul, your religious beliefs,
everything you put into your mind, your intellectual pursuits. We don’t tend to
watch and regulate those so why should we regulate anything we put into our
bodies? I would just say legalize freedom. Let people make the choices.
The biggest hurdle for people to get over is the fact that if
you legalize something it doesn’t mean you endorse it. Just because I legalize
freedom of choice in religion, that doesn’t mean I endorse violence by some
religions or
anything else, or some religions that make no sense. But if they’re nonviolent,
people get to make their choices. And the same way on personal habits.
The key thing about personal habits and individual liberty is if
people make bad choices, whether they make bad choices in their social behavior
or bad choices in their economic behavior, they have to suffer the consequences
and they can never go to the government and to their neighbor and use force to
bail them out. They have to assume responsibility for it.
So I’m for legalizing all freedom that does not initiate
violence against another person.
