Senator Jim Webb, CNN "Legalization On The Table"

Link to CNN For Full Transcript

Chetry: I want to ask you about the huge percentage of growth in incarceration since the 1980s. A lot of this is the result of non-violent crimes. Research shows that 60% of people in state prisons who are serving time for a drug offense have no prior history of violence or any significant selling activity. So once again, the question goes back to legalization. Is there some way to address this problem and would you support perhaps legalizing marijuana?

Webb: Well, I think what we need to do is to put all of the issues on the table. You’re correct. If you go back to 1980 as a starting point, I think we had 40,000 people in prison on drug charges and today, we have about 500,000 of them. The great majority of those are nonviolent crimes, possession crimes or minor sales. At the same time, we’ve got a situation with Mexican drug cartels conducting violence along the border, operating in more than 230 American cities and we aren’t getting our arms around that in a proper way. We need to put it all on the table. That’s why we need a presidential commission to look at these things, people who have high stature in these career areas and to report to Congress about the best way to go forward. But nothing should be off the table.

Chetry: And that includes possibly looking at legalization?

Webb: I think they should examine every aspect of drugs policies to see what is working and what is not working and where the consistencies are and, quite frankly, where the inconsistencies are in terms of how people end up in the system with similar activities.

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