Tony Hillerman Quotes

The current dominant opinion supporting the war on drugs in general, and our anti-marijuana laws in particular, is reminiscent of the opinion that supported the nationwide ban on alcohol consumption when I was a student. While alcoholic beverages are now regarded as ordinary articles of commerce, their use was then condemned with the same moral fervor that now supports the war on drugs.

Prohibition begets proliferation

Not since the collapse of the attempt to prohibit the ingestion of alcohol has our liberty been in such danger as it now is from the misnamed “war on drugs.”

There is absolutely no difference between alcohol prohibition and drug prohibition except the drug being prohibited.

The period of Prohibition … brought on the greatest breakdown of law and order the United States has known until today. I think there is a lesson here. Do not regulate the private morals of people. Do not tell them what they can take or not take. Because if you do, they will become angry and antisocial and they will get what they want from criminals who are able to work in perfect freedom because they have paid off the police.

Prohibition is an awful flop. We like it. It can't stop what it's meant to stop. We like it. It's left a trail of graft and slime, It don't prohibit worth a dime, It's filled our land with vice and crime. Nevertheless, we're for it.

Letting states legalize marijuana would free federal law enforcement resources for the more urgent tasks of thwarting, apprehending, and prosecuting international terrorists or murderers... As a matter of States' rights, regulating marijuana and alcohol seem indistinguishable; and, alcohol policy has been entrusted to the States since the repeal of Prohibition in 1933

The war on drugs has failed. Its failure has been so categorical and self-evident that the statement itself is bromidic. By any reasonable metric of success—addiction rates, violence, the availability of drugs in our schools— it’s clear that our 40-year jihad against certain plants and chemicals has done far more harm than good.

Drug money, such as booze money during Prohibition, has corrupted countless police, Drug Enforcement Administration agents, border patrol agents, prosecutors and judges... Because illegal drugs are unregulated, their purity is unknowable -- accounting for thousands of overdose deaths and injuries... Let's stipulate that some unknown number of Americans will become addicts after legalization, who otherwise would not have. We must ask whether the terrible price we are now paying -- in police costs, international drug control efforts, border security, foregone tax revenue, overdose deaths, corruption and violence -- is worth it.

The effect of the [opium prohibition] edict was electrical. Farmers stopped cultivation with little resistance. Smokers abandoned the habit by millions; it became unfashionable to smoke in public; and the young were constrained not to acquire the habit…

Liquor - you can make it illegal but you can't make it unpopular.

The War on Drugs employs millions - politicians, bureaucrats, policemen, and now the military - that probably couldn't find a place for their dubious talents in a free market, unless they were to sell pencils from a tin cup on street corners.

The war on meth must be fought with a multi-pronged approach.

If you want to fight a war on drugs, sit down at your own kitchen table and talk to your own children.

I'm sad to see the passing of the great drug warriors. I certainly did my part in that battle and I don't regret any of it.

The war on drugs is a war against the communities.

Prohibition is better than no liquor at all.

The war on drugs is being lost on a daily basis.

Although our war on drugs must be fortified with the best laws, enforcement efforts and resources, we would not be successful without your individual commitment to this cause.

I was trying in 'The Power of the Dog' to write a brutally accurate in-your-face, if you will, description of 30 years in the war on drugs. And the effect that that had on people.

There is absolutely no good reason – medical or law enforcement – that marijuana should not be legal.

I have now run up against an ugly snag, the Sunday Excise law. It is altogether too strict but I have no honorable alternative save to enforce it… to the furious rage of the saloon … keepers, and a good many other peoples too for which I am sorry.

I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my value system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal

If there is a good case to be made for the illegalization of drugs, there is a better case to be made for the illegalization for tobacco and alcohol.

Asking South American peasants to stop growing coca is like asking the Scots to stop growing barley because people on the other side of the world could not hold their drink.