>>These Republicans who support Paul don’t altogether realize that Paul is making a play for the Code Pink/Pothead left, but they are Republicans and conservatives.<<
Consider the possibility that Paul is pulling a bunch of young people into the Republican ranks with his liberal views on marijuana. Those young voters don’t like big government because of what it does to their friends who are occasional drug users (and, face it, at some point most young people experiment with marijuana, even if it’s only once or twice.)
They see friends tossed into jail, getting criminal records, etc., for what they consider relatively innocent behavior that they, themselves, have done in the past. Along comes Paul, a Libertarian running on a Republican ticket - but they don’t know that, and draws them in with his marijuana legalization message and his persistent diatribes against big government.
A lot of young people probably figured that Obama would have tackled the drug issue before now, and now it looks like he’ll avoid it entirely. As Paul’s popularity grows among the young, it’s possible that another Republican candidate will find a way to address their concerns as well, but it will take some delicate footwork to do so without losing the rest of the Republican base.
I think the way to go about it would be to address the harm that the criminalization of marijuana has done, taking specific examples of young people imprisoned for minor usage, or describing how their resulting arrest records have adversely impacted their lives.
What I’m saying is that Paul might be creating an opportunity for the Republican Party to appear reasonable to a large cohort of young people, while simultaneously boosting that same group’s awareness of the importance of returning to a limited government.
And, yes, I’m one of those, conservative, limited-government Republicans who think that we should consider decriminalization of marijuana. The current law wreaks havoc on our society in too many ways. We would definitely create some new problems with legalization, but they wouldn’t be as serious as the ones created by the current law, in my opinion.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. Unfortunately, too many of the legalize pot crowd don’t know when to stop. All too many would toss in heroin and cocaine for good measure. In CA, too many podiatrists etc have been issuing frivolous scripts for medical pot, making the law a parody.
If these folks were REALLY about smaller government, they would start at the bottom ... Not with pot, but with penicillin and other non-narcotic medical prescriptions. That doesn’t even occur to them.
I am not in favor of the war on illegal drugs, but decriminalization is a step that cannot be walked back.