Rand Paul has a good point - finally

By Richard K. Barry

Sen. Rand Paul was on "Fox News Sunday" today talking to host Chris Wallace about the current absurdity of jailing people for drug use. 

Look, the last two presidents could have conceivably been put in jail for their drug use and I really think - look what would've happened, it would've ruined their lives. They got lucky. But a lot of poor kids, particularly in the inner city, don't get lucky and they don't have good attorneys and they go to jail for some of these things and I think it's a big mistake.

There are people in jail for 37, 50, 45 years for nonviolent crimes and that's a huge mistake. Our prisons are full of non-violent criminals. I don't want to encourage people to do it. I think even marijuana is a bad thing to do. I think it takes away your incentive to work and show up and do the things that you should be doing. I don't think that it's a good idea.

I don't want to promote that but I also don't want to put people in jail who make a mistake. There are a lot of young people who do this and then later on in their twenties they grow up and get married and they quit doing things like this. I don't want to put them in jail and ruin their lives.

We could easily get into a debate about why irresponsible drug use is any different than irresponsible alcohol use, but on the main point that being jailed for drug use is stupid, Paul is uncharacteristically right.