Quotes & Sayings About Illegal Drugs

Drug offenses ... may be regarded as the prototypes of non-victim crimes today. The private nature of the sale and use of these drugs has led the police to resort to methods of detection and surveillance that intrude upon our privacy, including illegal search, eavesdropping, and entrapment. Indeed, the successful prosecution of such cases often requires police infringement of the constitutional protections that safeguard the privacy of individuals. — John Kaplan

Heckman discovered that when you consider all kinds of important future outcomes - annual income, unemployment rate, divorce rate, use of illegal drugs - GED recipients look exactly like high-school dropouts, despite the fact that they have earned this supposedly valuable extra credential, and despite the fact that they are, on average, considerably more intelligent than high-school dropouts. — Paul Tough

Since Russia has the largest number of illegal immigrants, second only to the US, and immigrants from Central Asia bring in drugs, I'm calling for a visa requirement for all those wonderful people from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. — Alexei Navalny

I'm serious. I've got to get people to realize that the government is full of it. Republicans and Democrats want to argue over stuff that's not important, like gay marriage or the war in Iraq or illegal immigration ... When I run - if I run - we're going to talk about real issues like improving our schools, cleaning up our neighborhoods of drugs and crime and making Alabama a better place for all people. — Charles Barkley

To demand that a person pee in a cup whenever you wish him to, without a documented reason to suspect that he has been using an illegal drug, is intolerable in our republic. You are saying to him, I wonder if you are not behaving in a way that I approve of. Convince me that you indeed are.
Outrageous.
Intolerable. — Alexander Shulgin

Federal law currently prohibits landlords from discriminating against prospective tenants who have had a felony conviction for drug use. Why? Because drug or alcohol abuse is considered a disability. According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): "An individual with a disability is any person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. The term physical or mental impairment may include, but is not limited to, conditions such as visual or hearing impairment, mobility impairment, HIV infection, mental retardation, drug addiction (except current illegal use of or addiction to drugs), or mental illness."[ii] — Brandon Turner

All drugs of any interest to any moderately intelligent person in America are now illegal. — Thomas Szasz

It's absolutely the wrong signal, I think, to those who have entered this country legally or those who may be considering illegal immigration for a lot of benefits to be provided ... Emergency medical needs should be met, but otherwise I think send the wrong signal to those who have come into the country legally and those who may be considering illegal immigration. So as you know, I've called for an increase in the border patrol agents. I've looked at that from both the standpoints of drugs and to prevent illegal immigration, but I think that's where the focus should be. — Elizabeth Dole

The original PATRIOT Act greatly increased our nation's ability to share intelligence information, made better use of technology, and provided terrorism investigators tools that have long been available in cases involving illegal drugs and organized crime. — Michael K. Simpson

People want to catch a buzz. That is why drugs are illegal, yet people still try to get their hands on them no matter what the consequence. Drugs make us happy, they may not be healthy. — Benjamin Franklin

Doctors are directly responsible for hooking millions of people on prescription drugs. They are also indirectly responsible for the plight of millions more who turn to illegal drugs because they were taught at an early age that drugs can cure anything - including psychological and emotional conditions - that ails them. — Robert S. Mendelsohn

The gun control mentality is ruthlessly absurd. It suggests that you pass a law which will bind law-abiding citizens - they won't have access to weapons. Now, we know that criminals, by definition, are people who don't obey laws. Therefore, you can pass all the laws that you want, they will still have access to these weapons, just as they have access to illegal drugs and other things right now. That means you end up with a situation in which the law-abiding folks can't defend themselves, and the crooks have all the guns. — Alan Keyes

We cannot afford all this illegal immigration and everything that comes with it, everything from the crime and to the drugs and the kidnappings and the extortion and the beheadings and the fact that people can't feel safe in their community. It's wrong! It's wrong! — Jan Brewer

There needs to be more pressure on the Mexican government to stop the drugs and illegal immigrants on their side of the border instead of exporting them to the U.S. — Timothy Murphy

The CIA admitted in 1998 that guerrilla armies it actively supported in Nicaragua were smuggling illegal drugs into the United States - drugs that were making their way onto the streets of inner-city black neighborhoods in the form of crack cocaine. The CIA also admitted that, in the midst of the War on Drugs, it blocked law enforcement efforts to investigate illegal drug networks that were helping to fund its covert war in Nicaragua.5 — Michelle Alexander

Not TV or illegal drugs but the automobile has been the chief destroyer of American communities. — Jane Jacobs

I don't think drugs should be illegal. I'm not an advocate of everybody running out and using drugs, but I think the drug wars are not working, there's millions and millions of dollars being spent on the drug war that we're never going to win. — Sonny Barger

Years later Nixon aide John Ehrlichman seemed to offer up a smoking gun when he told a reporter: The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. — Chris Hayes

I think everybody should have the choice [with drugs] the same as helmets. You should be able to say whether you want to wear one or not. By making drugs illegal, the government is intervening into our lives a little too much. — Sonny Barger

The similarities between street drug abuse and psychotropic prescription drug use are disturbing. Both types are toxic. Both can cause psychosis, damage the brain and other organs, and even cause death. And neither type of mind-altering drugs, legal or illegal, treats disease. It's important to recognize that the only significant difference between many prescription psychotropic drugs and street drugs such as "speed" and "downers" is that prescription drugs are legal. — Sydney Walker

Our border patrol does a great job under these very dangerous conditions. They use very sophisticated equipment, including gamma rays, to detect drugs and illegal immigrants as they enter the U.S. — Timothy Murphy

Devastation wrought by crack cocaine and the drug war, and the odd coincidence that an illegal drug crisis suddenly appeared in the black community after - not before - a drug war had been declared. In fact, the War on Drugs began at a time when illegal drug use was on the decline. — Michelle Alexander

I don't feel drugs should be illegal. I don't think people should take drugs every day, but I don't see any difference with people taking drugs like they drink. Take drugs on Saturday night and go to a party and have a good time and have somebody drive you home or whatever it is so you don't hurt anybody else, that's fine. But if you wake up Monday morning and take 'em again you're a drug addict. But, they should be legal. — Sonny Barger

If drugs were legalized in the US, the Mexican economy would collapse since the earnings from drugs bring in more hard currency than its largest licit source, oil sales. Mexico is a corrupt state that has now become dependent on the earnings on an illegal product. But inevitably, the product will become legal and then Mexico will retain its corruption but must face the needs of its citizens now employed by the drug industry who have become steeped in violence and conditioned to higher incomes. — Charles Bowden

And you know, it's not just illegal immigration. Terrorists can come across. They're devastating our ranchers down in southern Arizona - drop houses, kidnapping, automobile accidents, extortion, drugs, the spill-over with the drug cartels. We're facing all of it. — Jan Brewer

Look, we understood we couldn't make it illegal to be young or poor or black in the United States, but we could criminalize their common pleasure. We understood that drugs were not the health problem we were making them out to be, but it was such a perfect issue for the Nixon White House that we couldn't resist it — John Ehrlichman

In recent years, we have been sending a clear, consistent signal about the harms of drugs, particularly marijuana, which for most young people is the first illegal drug that they are exposed to. — John Walters

When I got to college, the fake ID thing wasn't that important, since pretty much everyone could get away with drinking in New Orleans. But the drugs, well, that was a different story altogether, because drugs are every bit as illegal in New Orleans as anywhere else
at least, if you're black and poor, and have the misfortune of doing your drugs somewhere other than the dorms at Tulane University. But if you are lucky enough to be living at Tulane, which is a pretty white place, especially contrasted with the city where it's located, which is 65 percent black, then you are absolutely set. — Tim Wise

Pot enables you to think clearly without any fear or any limits. It's a mind-expander, which is part of why it's illegal and why drugs like Vicodin are legal. — Roseanne Barr

In fact, street gangs are the primary distributor of illegal drugs in the United States. — Dave Reichert

Annual drug deaths: tobacco: 395,000, alcohol: 125,000, 'legal' drugs: 38,000, illegal drug overdoses: 5,200, marijuana: 0. Considering government subsidies of tobacco, just what is our government protecting us from in the drug war? — Ralph Nader

Anyway, it was big and I set up the trickiest structure. Accounts all over the world and money flying around like ... The right mix of drugs and Remy Martin. Like a big whirl of light and money, pulsating like it was alive, like one of those glowing jellyfish things deep in the ocean.
His voice softened and the distance that was always between Mickey and the world melted away as he spoke. I had the first glimpse into what passed for Mickey's soul: a love for illegal mathematics. — Dan Ahearn

Notice how those who have medicated away their hardships with illegal drugs, alcohol, or sex can seem immature. They may look forty-five, but they have the character of an adolescent. Find a person who has weathered storms rather than avoided them and you will find someone who is wise. — Edward T. Welch

The main challenge Not For Sale is big and it is modern day slavery, which is a $32billion dollar industry second to the illegal trade of drugs and arms. — David Batstone

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. — David Hockney

The War on Drugs and the War on Homelessness are on a collision course that no one in the media or in public life are willing to acknowledge. Ostensibly aimed at decreasing the use of illegal drugs, the War on Drugs succeeds only in increasing homelessness. — Thomas Szasz

So long as large sums of money are involved - and they are bound to be if drugs are illegal - it is literally impossible to stop the traffic, or even to make a serious reduction in its scope. — Milton Friedman

We can begin the restructuring of thought by declaring legitimate what we have denied for so long. Lets us declare Nature to be legitimate. The notion of illegal plants is obnoxious and ridiculous in the first place. — Terence McKenna

The vastly different sentences afforded drunk drivers and drug offenders speaks volumes regarding who is viewed as disposable - someone to be purged from the body politic - and who is not. Drunk drivers are predominantly white and male. White men comprised 78 percent of the arrests for this offense in 1990 when new mandatory minimums governing drunk driving were being adopted.65 They are generally charged with misdemeanors and typically receive sentences involving fines, license suspension, and community service. Although drunk driving carries a far greater risk of violent death than the use or sale of illegal drugs, the societal response to drunk drivers has generally emphasized keeping the person functional and in society, while attempting to respond to the dangerous behavior through treatment and counseling.66 People charged with drug offenses, though, are disproportionately poor people of color. They are typically charged with felonies and sentenced to prison. — Michelle Alexander

We must send the message that if you use illegal drugs, you will pay the ultimate price by not playing an entire season. And if you get caught again, you will be banished for life. — Jim Bunning

If you import a commercial quantity of illegal drugs ... it is because you have made the personal decision that you are prepared to get rich by destroying our children. I have made the decision that I love our children enough that we will kill you if you do this. — Newt Gingrich

These are busy times for the Border Patrol, the customs agents, immigration folks; but if we are going to send these agencies to fight a war on drugs, to fight a war against illegal behavior, we have to send them the proper tools. — Bob Filner

Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through your own pain. Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. Whatever the substance you are addicted to - alcohol, food, legal or illegal drugs, or a person - you are using something or somebody to cover up your pain. — Eckhart Tolle

According to the CDC, cigarettes kill over 435,000 people a year in the United States. Most of us in Danbury were locked away for trading in illegal drugs. The annual death toll of illegal drug addicts, according to the same government study? Seventeen thousand. Heroin or coffin nails, you be the judge. — Piper Kerman

Illegal drugs are better for you than the legal stuff. How many artists have created while drunk, high on laudanum, opium, chloral, or amphetamines? What have antidepressants ever done for culture? — Hanif Kureishi

The accession of not one but three illegal drug users in a row to the US presidency constitutes an existential challenge to the prohibitionist regime. The fact that some of the most successful people of our time, be it in business, finances, politics, entertainment or the arts, are current or former substance users is a fundamental refutation of its premises and a stinging rebuttal of its rationale. A criminal law that is broken at least once by 50% of the adult population and that is broken on a regular basis by 20% of the same adult population is a broken law, a fatally flawed law. How can a democratic government justify a law that is consistently broken by a substantial minority of the population? What we are witnessing here is a massive case of civil disobedience not seen since alcohol prohibition in the 1930 in the US. On what basis can a democratic system justify the stigmatization and discrimination of a strong minority of as much as 20% of its population? — Jeffrey Dhywood

I don't know anyone who is not using drugs for the reason that they're illegal. — Roman Polanski

The perception is that baseball's players' union is protecting players to use steroids and other illegal performance-enhancing drugs. — Jim Bunning

The American craving for illegal, mind-altering, addictive chemicals provides a steady flow of American capital through the Texas border into Mexico and South America. Basically, the drug traffic is uncontainable as long as its U.S. market exists, but newspapers and other media virtuously trumpet feel-good headlines about "record drug busts" and arrests while the drug trade continues unabated. — William Earl Maxwell

These stark racial disparities cannot be explained by rates of drug crime. Studies show that people of all colors use and sell illegal drugs at remarkably similar rates. — Michelle Alexander

What they are doing is disarming in the battle to stop illegal drugs and illegal aliens. — Lamar S. Smith

SOCIETY AS COMPULSIVE AND ADDICTED Our society is highly addictive. We have sixty million sexual abuse victims. Possibly seventy-five million lives are seriously affected by alcoholism, with no telling how many more through other drugs. We have no idea of the actual impact on our economy of the billions of tax-free dollars that come from the illegal drug trade. Over fifteen million families are violent. Some 60 percent of women and 50 percent of men have eating disorders. We have no actual data on work addiction or sexual addictions. I saw a recent quotation that cited thirteen million gambling addicts. If toxic shame is the fuel of addiction, we have a massive problem of shame in our society. — John Bradshaw

I thanked Nancy for what she had accomplished in her war against illegal drugs, but in my heart, I was really trying to say, "Thank you, Nancy, for everything; thank you for lighting up my life for almost forty years. — Ronald Reagan

Most of these stops and searches are futile. It has been estimated that 95 percent of Pipeline stops yield no illegal drugs. — Michelle Alexander

By characterizing the use of illegal drugs as quasi-legal, state-sanctioned, Saturday afternoon fun, legalizers destabilize the societal norm that drug use is dangerous. They undercut the goals of stopping the initiation of drug use to prevent addiction ... Children entering drug abuse treatment routinely report that they heard that 'pot is medicine' and, therefore, believed it to be good for them. — Andrea Barthwell

The government has no more right to tell me what goes into my mouth, including illegal drugs, than it has to tell me what comes out of my mouth. — Milton Friedman

The American middle-class appetite for illegal drugs provided the capital to build some of the most sophisticated and effective companies on earth. — Jonathan Franzen

Loose diagnosis is causing a national drug overdose of medication. Six percent of our people are addicted to prescription drugs, and there are now more emergency room visits and deaths due to legal prescription drugs than to illegal street drugs.6 — Allen Frances

Studies show that people of all colors use and sell illegal drugs at remarkably similar rates.10 If there are significant differences in the surveys to be found, they frequently suggest that whites, particularly white youth, are more likely to engage in drug crime than people of color.11 That is not what one would guess, however, when entering our nation's prisons and jails, which are over-flowing with black and brown drug offenders. — Michelle Alexander

Madam Speaker, it is time to halt illegal entry into this country. It is time to halt the flow of illegal drugs and weapons into this great Nation, and it is time to secure our borders. — Marsha Blackburn

What really drives the battle against law enforcement and punishment is not a commitment to treatment, but the widely held view that, first, we are imprisoning too many people for merely possessing illegal drugs; second, drug and other criminal sentences are too long and harsh, and third, the criminal justice system is unjustly punishing young black men. These are among the great urban myths of our time. — John P. Walters

I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal. — Milton Friedman

Most of the so-called illegal drugs have vastly increased in use, despite billions of dollars spent suppressing them. I believe 750,000 Americans are arrested every year for possession of cannabis. I mean that's 750, 000 lives damaged by that arrest process. It's a crazy, crazy system. It's playing into the system that the hallucinogens are grouped together with addictive drugs, which they are not. But addictive or not it's our responsibility as adults to make decisions and it's not the states' right to do that, in my opinion. — Graham Hancock

Bonding over illegal drugs hadn't magically solved our problems, — Shaun David Hutchinson

Illegal drug use runs contrary to the image of health depicted by cycling. Distributors of these drugs must be prosecuted more harshly as they are ciminals. — Bernard Hinault

Why are drugs so profitable? Essentially, many argue, it's because they are illegal. By making drugs a criminal enterprise, it creates an enormous black market economy where drugs fetch far greater prices than they would if legal. — James Morcan

20 years, we have experienced three unanticipated fads partly precipitated by DSM-IV: a 20-fold increase in Autism Spectrum Disorder,7 a tripling of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD),8 and a doubling of Bipolar Disorders.9 The most dangerous fad is a 40-fold increase in childhood Bipolar Disorders,10 stimulated, not by DSM-IV, but instead by reckless and misleading drug company marketing. Twenty percent of the U.S. population11 is taking a psychotropic drug; 7% is addicted to one; and overdoses with legal drugs now cause more emergency room visits than overdoses with illegal drugs. — Allen Frances

All illegal narcotics are medicinal. Boredom is a disease worse than cancer. Drugs cure it, with little or no side effects if used as directed. Life's temporary for a reason, it gets boring after awhile. You should be inventing new drugs is what you should be doing! Newer, crazier drugs ... and more holes, that's what you ladies need! — Doug Stanhope

So at the end of the day, our number 1 goal, our top priority, is to motivate American youngsters to reject the abuse of illegal drugs, tobacco and alcohol. All three of them are illegal behaviors. — Barry McCaffrey

If the war against drugs is lost, then so are the wars against theft, speeding, incest, fraud, rape, murder, arson, and illegal parking. Few, if any, such wars are winnable. So let us all do anything we choose. — Theodore Dalrymple

People use drugs, legal and illegal, because their lives are intolerably painful or dull. They hate their work and find no rest in their leisure. They are estranged from their families and their neighbors. It should tell us something that in healthy societies drug use is celebrative, convivial, and occasional, whereas among us it is lonely, shameful, and addictive. We need drugs, apparently, because we have lost each other. — Wendell Berry

Illegal immigration is crisis for our country. It is an open door for drugs, criminals, and potential terrorists to enter our country. It is straining our economy, adding costs to our judicial, healthcare, and education systems. — Timothy Murphy

Although I am a strong political conservative, I now believe that the costs of our fruitless struggle against illegal drugs are not worth the modest benefits likely to be achieved. — Ernest Van Den Haag