I like how Rand Paul talks about politicians who smoked pot as teenagers or college students who then, when they found themselves in a position to set policy, went on to support incarceration for others who smoke pot.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) accused Jeb Bush of hypocrisy after The Boston Globe reported the former Florida governor was a heavy marijuana smoker while at an elite prep school.
Bush opposed a Florida medical marijuana ballot initiative last year even though he partook liberally of the herb while in high school.
“You would think he’d have a little more understanding then,” Paul told The Hill while en route to a political event in Texas.
“He was even opposed to medical marijuana,” Paul said of Bush, a potential rival in the 2016 Republican presidential primary. “This is a guy who now admits he smoked marijuana but he wants to put people in jail who do.
“I think that’s the real hypocrisy, is that people on our side, which include a lot of people who made mistakes growing up, admit their mistakes but now still want to put people in jail for that,” he said.
“Had he been caught at Andover, he’d have never been governor, he’d probably never have a chance to run for the presidency,” he added.
I’ve said the exact same thing in the exact same way countless times. I believe it’s an unassailable argument that you ought not support ruining the life of someone for something that you did yourself unless you think your life should have been ruined.
If you’re only able to win elections because you got a second chance or because people just don’t know what you’ve done, you should be willing to extend the same generosity and good will to others.
It’s particularly galling to come out and admit what you’ve done and that you were never held accountable for it, and then to insist that others are held accountable.
Now, obviously, if you got away with committing robberies, sexual assault or something else that should clearly be punished severely, that doesn’t mean that you’re a hypocrite for thinking that we should maintain laws against those crimes. But you should turn yourself in or pay restitution.
And just because you did some drugs when you were young, doesn’t mean that all drugs should be legal, but the biggest part of this isn’t the legality; it’s the punishment.
President Obama doesn’t have a perfect record on this issue, by any means, although he has been moving the government in a better direction. Aqua Buddha has a less cautious and more morally clear position on marijuana, and I’m willing to give him credit for it.
I think it would do a lot more for our nation’s youth if people like Jeb, Barack, and Rand would talk honestly about their experiences using drugs and what they think about them in retrospect. They should tell kids how smoking pot held them back and why they quit using it. At the same time, some heavy marijuana smoking didn’t prevent them from becoming senators, governors and presidents. So, really, let’s get real.
I bash Rand Paul relentlessly for good reason, but he’s absolutely justified to give Jeb Bush shit for being a hypocrite on this issue. Even Obama has to take a bit of a hit here, no pun intended.
