Thom Hartmann: So what, you know what do you think? Cully Stimson says marijuana is not good for you, it should not be decriminalized. I say alcohol is not good for you and we allow the sale of that. And frankly what happened to the idea of just letting people you know, like freedom? Letting people do what they want? A guy who would really know, Judge Jim Gray, he’s a former presiding judge of the Orange County California Superior Court and author of numerous books. He’s with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. These are former law enforcement offices and judges and prosecutors, people like this, who have worked in this field. LEAP.org is the website. And Judge Jim Gray, welcome back to the program.
Jim Gray: Well thank you Thom and it’s certainly nice to be with you. And I’ve been listening for the last few minutes and you’re, simply what you talk about is right. That my drug of choice is alcohol, I take it for relaxation, a lot of other people’s drugs of choice are different. When I was at USC Law School back in 19, early 1970s about half of the top ten percent of the law school was taking marijuana on a pretty much regular basis. They haven’t fallen out of society, they’re responsible. You know it’s a question of adults and adult making choices. I certainly believe that marijuana has it’s harms, no question about it. But the biggest harm today about marijuana is jail and that is a harm that really cannot be withdrawn. So we need to repeal drug prohibition and we need to start with marijuana prohibition. And those people in California which is of course where I live, have an opportunity to really make a major step forward by passing Proposition 19 to treat marijuana like alcohol for adults. And anybody listening, please contact anyone you know that votes in California and everybody knows someone, and encourage them to support Proposition 19 on November 2nd.
Thom Hartmann: Give us a little bit about background about yourself, Judge Gray. What brought you to this perspective?
Jim Gray: Well I am a former navy jag officer, I was a federal prosecutor and then I was appointed by a Republican governor to the bench in 1983. And just looking in my own court room. You see us churning low level drug offenders through the system for no good purpose. You see us arresting and convicting, incarcerating even big time sellers. Does that mean that now cocaine or marijuana is no longer available in that city? No, not at all it just means that someone else treats it as an employment opportunity.
So the other thing you see, and this is what really got me started, Thom, was that the tougher we get on drug prosecutions, literally the softer we get with regards to the prosecution of everything else. And so in Orange County where I was sitting, you know we had a lot of murderers, rapists, robbers getting lenient treatment because we didn’t spend enough resources on their prosecution investigation because we’re spending all these resources on drug crimes. So that literally, you know, again we only have so many resources. Let’s spend them on the people that are causing harm to others. And leave people whose drug policy may not pass our morality test but who are not causing any problems to anybody except themselves.
Thom Hartmann: And in this day and age right now, when states are I mean you’ve got towns like in Colorado where they’re turning off every third street light because they can’t afford to pay for the electricity. Where you know teachers are getting laid off, cops are being laid off, firefighters are you know they’re cutting back on overtime to try, just hoping that they don’t have a big fire. It’s got to be a really, really stupid time for us to continue enforcing, to continue saying we’re going to use a lot of these resources, right across the board, from police officers to courts, and jails not to mention.
But Judge Gray, we have a competing interest here. Actually two of them. The private prison industry, I don’t know the last two years I don’t know the statistics but I know in the last couple through the middle of the Bush administration, the industry in the United Stats that had the highest rate of growth was the private prison industry in the United States. And that by the way stretched back into the Clinton administration as well. And you’ve got them and you’ve got the drug testing industry that’s making a fortune. And I’ve told this story on the air before, I had a friend, his name was Stanley, back in the early ‘70s, who was a chemist. And he used to sell drug testing kits in High Times Magazine in the back of the magazine so that people could check out how strong their pot was and stuff. And when these drug laws started coming along he turned, and he was buying five cents worth of chemicals and selling them for $15 through High Times Magazine. He sold this company for millions and millions of dollars.
And now that five cents of chemicals is like $40 and it’s mandatory that everybody has to take it. So you’ve got that industry. And now we’ve got the beer industry coming in and lobbying against Prop 19 in California. How do you take on these vested interests that are making a fortune on the prohibition of pot?
Jim Gray: Thom, you’re right. The answer is money. You know this group called a Partnership for a Drug Free America?
Thom Hartmann: Yeah.
Jim Gray: Do you know who the original sponsors of that were? The tobacco industry and the alcohol industry.
Thom Hartmann: Oh Jeez. Largest sellers of drugs in America, deadly drugs.
Jim Gray: Of course, but they’re spending money to reinforce the distinction between legal drugs and illegal drugs. And from a merchandising standpoint it makes perfect sense. So the people that are making money, the people building prisons, staffing them, like you say. People that are actually selling security services, testing services, etc., we just need to take stock of what’s going on. Because drug prohibition has put a prohibition on discussion. And you know we’ve got to discuss this openly, fully, honestly. And I guarantee, as soon as we relieve ourselves the ability to do that we will change away from this way old policy of drug prohibition. I’ve had two sitting congressmen in Orange County, conservative guys, who told me you know most people in Washington realize the war on drugs is not winnable but it’s eminently fundable and the people in Washington are addicted to the drug war funding.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah.
Jim Gray: So the people are ahead of the politicians here, don’t look to the politicians to lead the way, they don’t want to lose the money. So, Prop 19 in California, it makes good sense, it’s the right thing to do, the people need to vote for this like we did, where all the politicians were against 215 the medical marijuana proposition. It still passed by 56% of the vote. This is an important election and I appreciate your discussion on this and I certainly agree with your comments.
Thom Hartmann: We’re talking with Judge Jim Gray. The organization is Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, LEAP.org. And Judge Gray we only have five, ten seconds left. But it really is prohibition just like with alcohol.
Jim Gray: It is the same thing. And at least when we repealed alcohol prohibition the problems with the purity went away. So there’s so much to talk about. My website is JudgeJimGray.com. Please visit me there and I’ll respond to anybody who writes to me.
Thom Hartmann: You got it. Judge Jim Gray, and it’s with an A?
Jim Gray: G-R-A-Y, that’s right.
Thom Hartmann: G-R-A-Y. JudgeJimGray.com. Check it out. And thank you so much, Judge, for being with us today.
Jim Gray: Good luck to us all. Vote for Prop 19.
Thom Hartmann: Thank you, indeed. For a better California, for a better America.
Transcribed by Suzanne Roberts, Portland Psychology Clinic.
