Did Governor Deal Really Say "Free the Weed" At the Swearing In Ceremony? Nah!

Remember Prohibition? Neither do I.


We're all living in a day and age that has it's eerie similarities to those fabled times of speakeasy's and Chicago Mobs and a wink and a nod towards a bad law. And Governor Deal actually talked about it today at the radically under attended swearing in ceremony down to the statehouse today.


Not that I was there as I do not circulate in those rarefied circles, I was safely ensconced at Casa Del Bruce in Decatur building snow forts and seeing if the mighty Honda Spree scooter could navigate our frozen roadways up to the local CVS for some emergency chocolate chip cookies. After several narrow escapes I concluded my journey on foot.


But I did read Big Jim Galloway's account over to the AJC's Political Insider and was struck by the following quotes: 


“Presently, one out of every 13 Georgia residents is under some form of correctional control. It cost about $3 million per day to operate our Department of Corrections. 


As a State, we cannot afford to have so many of our citizens waste their lives because of addictions. It is draining our State Treasury and depleting our workforce…..”

Sounds like a caveat to me. Could this be evidence of an attempt to test the waters for De-Crim? That thought is echoed in the article's comment trail by folks like hypocrites, Freedom Lover and several others. As a Libertarian, I believe my party has a solution to this issue. Namely our platform plank:

Libertarian Party of Georgia Platform

5. THE WAR ON DRUGS

We believe the so-called "War on Drugs" is more accurately described as a war on freedom and the U.S. Constitution. It has provided a rationale by which the power of the state has been expanded to restrict greatly our 4th Amendment right to privacy, and poses an especially grave threat to individual liberty and to domestic order. Therefore, we call for the repeal of all laws establishing criminal or civil penalties for the manufacture, use, or sale of drugs. We wish to see an end to "anti-crime" measures that limit our rights to keep and bear arms and that restrict individual rights to be secure in our persons, homes, and property. Furthermore, the ‘War on Drugs’ serves as a subsidy for illegal drug dealers by driving up their profit margin, and has the unintentional effect of increasing crime in our society.

One of the stated goals of last years run for office by my Libertarian brothers and sisters was to influence the debate on as wide a range of issues as we could. We're solidly for De-Crim and hopefully the republicans will co-opt this issue on the cost saving basis alone. Time will tell.