Ron Paul went out of his way to emphasize his support for medical marijuana, insisting that marijuana laws should be set not by the federal government but by the states.

"You can at least let sick people have marijuana because it's helpful," Paul said. "But the compassionate conservatives say, well we can't do this, we're going to put people who are sick and dying with cancer and are being helped with marijuana if they have multiple sclerosis -- the federal government is going in there and overriding state laws and putting people like that in prison."

The Obama administration had promised a hands-off policy on marijuana laws, saying the issue was best regulated at the state level. But the number of raids has been on the rise, and last month federal prosecutors in California announced a crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries, threatening to shutter state-licensed businesses.

"Why don't we handle the drugs like we handle alcohol?" Paul continued. "Alcohol's a deadly drug. The real deadly drugs are the prescription drugs, they kill more people than the illegal drugs."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report earlier this[...]



[Published in GreenNews - Read the original article]



