Edwards: War On Drugs Too Punitive

Grinnell, Ia. - America needs to reconsider its punitive approach to "the so-called war on drugs," presidential candidate John Edwards said here today.

"We're not going to build enough prisons to solve this problem," he told a crowd of about 800 at Grinnell College.

The former North Carolina senator grinned when a young man sitting behind him on stage asked about drug policy. "Only on college campuses," Edwards joked before answering.

He said he's especially concerned about mandatory minimum sentences for first-time drug offenders, which he said should be reconsidered. He added that too few drug offenders get treatment.

"You go to jail, you come out of jail, and a lot of people go right back to the environment that got them in trouble to begin with," he said. "...We need to get them the help that they need; if they need education, if they need job training, if they need drug rehabilitation."

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[cactusJohn]

John Edwards speech in LA last week, on the environment (and other matters) was the best I've heard from any candidate in this seemingly endless race. As soon as he wins the Iowa Caucus and the the New Hampshire primary the media will no longer be able to ignore him over window dressing candidates: the "woman" and the "black"---

[Galvestonians for Dr. Ron Paul]

John Edwards remains in good standing in this interactive,CONSISTENTLY, but none of this is reported by the MSM this way.
I hear more comments on Air America in favor of John Edwards then any other candidate.

I thought this was a very interesting interactive...It seems to be very fair to ALL candidates and has had a lot of traffic.
(up to 280k people have contributed).
Be prepared to spend some time and when your done, notice the slide bar at the bottom of the page and compare from one week to the next and study how it is consistent with what is actually happening from one week to the next and the amount of people who actually took participation.
Notice the inconsistency with Hillary Clinton...
This does not look good for her, Mittens or Rootsie!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21116732