Rand Paul in 2000: End the war on drugs

Here is how Paul responded:

“I would agree with him. I think they are sort of separate issues, and obviously you can take the savings from one. But I would agree with him: The war on drugs is an abysmal failure and a waste of money. And we should better spend [the money] dealing with people, with their addiction problems, quit wasting all the money, sending the military to Bolivia to shoot farmers who are growing coca plants. That’s just ridiculous. So I do agree with him there: Just end that war on drugs and make it a much more local situation, more community oriented…There’s probably a lot of savings in that.”

That can be read as an endorsement of legalization, but it also can be read as similar to the position Paul has taken since he became a Senate candidate: devolve drug policy to state and local governments; emphasize rehabilitation rather than punishment. It all depends on what Paul meant by “end that war on drugs.” For me that means repealing drug prohibition. But recall that Barack Obama, who as a Senate candidate in 2004 called the war on drugs an “utter failure,” supposedly ended it in 2009. I suspect that Rand Paul in 2000 had in mind something closer to my idea of ending the war on drugs, but I can’t prove it. Still, it is probably significant that Paul, unlike Obama, did not feel a need to say legalization is a bad idea.