Other than on immigration and maybe getting into more wars, there is little real disagreement among the candidates. One fault line that arose in the last debate concerned pot laws.
Rand Paul took the expect libertarian position, basically that it is heartless to deny patients medical marijuana and that putting people in jail for pot is just wrong. Other candidates, like Bush, Christie and Fiorina, took the reflexive War On Drugs approach that has defined the party's stance for decades.
It's surprising to me this issue doesn't get more attention. The party has a big problem appealing to younger voters. Now granted, all of them are not wanting to get stoned, but support for pot legalization has to be heavily skewed by voter age. What easier way to show some relevance to younger voters than to adopt Paul's approach? Unfortunately, the establishment country club republicans have their arrogant Just Say No mindset. After all, as Paul noted, rich white guys like Jeb! don't get sent to jail for pot. And the War On Drugs has been a dismal failure, costing billions, ruining countless lives, creating our refugee problem and destabilizing governments and societies throughout Latin America. Like with the Iraqwar however, the party establishment seems determined to learn nothing from their failures and instead to pretend that they were great successes. Good luck with that.
Rand Paul took the expect libertarian position, basically that it is heartless to deny patients medical marijuana and that putting people in jail for pot is just wrong. Other candidates, like Bush, Christie and Fiorina, took the reflexive War On Drugs approach that has defined the party's stance for decades.
It's surprising to me this issue doesn't get more attention. The party has a big problem appealing to younger voters. Now granted, all of them are not wanting to get stoned, but support for pot legalization has to be heavily skewed by voter age. What easier way to show some relevance to younger voters than to adopt Paul's approach? Unfortunately, the establishment country club republicans have their arrogant Just Say No mindset. After all, as Paul noted, rich white guys like Jeb! don't get sent to jail for pot. And the War On Drugs has been a dismal failure, costing billions, ruining countless lives, creating our refugee problem and destabilizing governments and societies throughout Latin America. Like with the Iraqwar however, the party establishment seems determined to learn nothing from their failures and instead to pretend that they were great successes. Good luck with that.
