Lew Rockwell’s new Lew Rockwell Show interview with author Jesse Ventura provides interesting criticism of the war on marijuana in America and thoughts on the prospect of a future without that war.
Rockwell mentions at the beginning of the interview that he loves the books Ventura has written and says that Ventura’s new book Marijuana Manifesto is “so needed, so timely, so well documented, so well written” and may be Ventura’s “most important” book.
Ventura’s criticism of the war on marijuana did not begin with the publication of Marijuana Manifesto. In his book Do I Stand Alone? — published in 2000 while Ventura was governor of Minnesota — Ventura wrote that he saw “no reason for marijuana to be illegal.”
Now, Ventura has dedicated a book to the examination of topics related to marijuana. In the interview, Ventura tells Rockwell that the motivation for writing the new book was someone very close to Ventura discovering marijuana stopped the individual’s multiple weekly seizures after pharmaceuticals had both failed to stop the seizures and caused “horrible side effects.”
Speaking about people being killed in drug war police actions, including in SWAT team raids of homes, Ventura comments that the drug war is a real war, not just a war in name. As tends to happen in wars, Ventura says that in the drug war “civilians die and governments just shrug it off as collateral damage.”
For the future, Ventura predicts marijuana related activities will be a source for business and employment growth in America. This, Ventura says is already developing with the liberalizing of marijuana laws by states and local governments.
While the United States government continues its war on marijuana, albeit restrained by the liberalized marijuana laws of states and local governments, Ventura expresses optimism that the US government will be forced to give up on its war. Further, Ventura proposes that “the marijuana issue could be the very issue that would bring us back, create a revolution, and allow the public to step forward and tell the government, ‘No, you work for me, and you’re there to carry out our wishes and not your own agenda.’”
Listen to the complete interview here.
Rockwell is a member of the Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board.
