Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr kicks off convention with MPP
Friday, May 23rd, 2008 at 12:03 pm | By: Radical Russ
Marijuana project parties with Barr – - Breaking News, Political News & National Security News – The Washington Times
DENVER — Bob Barr has been to the Dark Side, and they do indeed have cookies.The Libertarian National Convention kicked off yesterday with a tea-and-cookies reception hosted by the Marijuana Policy Project featuring none other than Mr. Barr, the party’s leading candidate for its presidential nomination.
Such a scene would have been unthinkable a few years ago when Mr. Barr’s name was synonymous with the war on drugs. In 1998, he authored the Barr Amendment, which prohibited the District of Columbia from voting to permit medical-marijuana use and became a lightning rod for drug-legalization advocates.
But times have changed. After leaving the Republican Party in 2006, Mr. Barr denounced the federal drug war and became a lobbyist for his former nemeses at the Marijuana Policy Project.
One of his top priorities during the last congressional session was the repeal of his own amendment, which has remained part of the congressional appropriations bill for the District of Columbia even though Mr. Barr left office in 2002.
Mr. Barr addressed his position on the drug legalization yesterday in an online conversation with the Rocky Mountain News.
“Regarding the drug war, I’ve been there, done that, and know firsthand our current strategy is not working,” said Mr. Barr.
“Continuing to have the federal government run roughshod over the states, even if the citizens of a state decide they wish to legalize medicinal marijuana, for example, is wrong,” he said. “As president, I would completely reorient federal law enforcement priorities, that currently are skewed far too much against marijuana possession, and would consider all — and I do mean all — options.”
The Libertarian Party platform calls for the repeal of drug laws and the pardoning of nonviolent drug offenders.
“The suffering that drug misuse has brought about is deplorable; however, drug prohibition causes more harm than drugs themselves,” the platform reads. “The so-called ‘War on Drugs’ is in reality a war against the American people, our Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It is a grave threat to individual liberty, to domestic order and to peace in the world.”
I’ve spoken with former Rep. Barr on the drug war issue. He told me what changed his mind on the drug war issue was 9/11. He felt that after 9/11, the government had gone too far in usurping civil liberties, and that caused him to rethink the usurpation of civil liberties in the drug war as well.
It’s something I often bring up when people tell me they can’t believe how our government is spying on its people, holding them without legitimate charges, seizing their property, violating their rights, all in the name of the war on terror. I reply, “you haven’t been following the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs then, have you?”
Topics: Bob Barr, MPP
