A Quote by George Pelecanos

There's a school of thought that says if you legalize drugs it will solve the problem. We're all good liberals, we said let's do it and see what happens. We wanted to be honest about it. So in our brainstorming sessions we'd say, what if? The finding was that all the negative things came out also. The answer is that we didn't believe in the full legalization of drugs. But we don't believe in the criminalization of drugs, either.
Would the world be a better place if all drugs were legalized tomorrow? Absolutely. But pragmatically speaking, you're not going to go from the criminalization of all drugs to the legalization of drugs overnight.
For me, personally, I think drugs are sacred and should be used for work. That's what I believe in. Drugs have a real shamanistic value. I can handle drugs. I've never had a problem.
In claiming that prohibition, not the drugs themselves, is the problem, Nadelmann and many others - even policemen - have said that "the war on drugs is lost." But to demand a yes or no answer to the question "Is the war against drugs being won?" is like demanding a yes or no answer to the question "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" Never can an unimaginative and fundamentally stupid metaphor have exerted a more baleful effect upon proper thought.
Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.
They said I ignored the drug problem. Well, I gave speeches on drugs, I wrote books on drugs. I did darn near everything on drugs!
I think it's too bad that everybody's decided to turn on drugs, I don't think drugs are the problem. Crime is the problem. Cops are the problem. Money's the problem. But drugs are just drugs.
I won't do anything that is connected with drugs. I've seen drugs ruin so many people's lives. I don't think there's anything cute about drugs. And I don't believe in celebrating them.
The choice is not between drugs and no drugs, but between illegal drugs and legal drugs. Until the 1920s drugs were legal, why not now? Lots of people are on drugs anyway - it is called medication.
Scheduling of drugs is a government problem, not our problem. They want to schedule something, that's their problem. My feeling of creation is to make new drugs. They're new drugs, so they're unscheduled. They've never been made before.
I believe that the most dangerous drugs that there are right now are the drugs that are legal - Over-the-counter medication. I think the entire healthcare system promotes the use of these drugs.
Hip-hop culture is deeply rooted in the wrong things. Hip-hop is about drugs right now. It's more so about drugs - about selling drugs, about using drugs - it's bad for kids.
That's what I hate about the war on drugs. All day long we see those commercials: "Here's your brain, here's your brain on drugs", "Just Say No", "Why do you think they call it dope?" … And then the next commercial is [singing] "This Bud's for yooouuuu." C'mon, everybody, let's be hypocritical bastards. It's okay to drink your drug. We meant those other drugs. Those untaxed drugs. Those are the ones that are bad for you.
One of the things that has happened is that our drug laws have been institutionalized now. If you want to say that somebody's a bad person in a movie or in a television show or something about that, you say they sell drugs or they use drugs.
Drugs are horrible; I say no to drugs. I've never done drugs in my life.
I'd like to have every gentleman and lady in this room commit themselves to get our government to legalize drugs. So they have to get it through a doctor, not just some gangsters who sell it under the table. Let's legalize drugs like they did in Amsterdam. No one's hiding or sneaking around corners to get it. They go to a doctor to get it.
Sid said that drugs weren't the problem, life was the problem. Drugs were the solution.
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