LIBERTARIAN GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE TO ATTEND ANTI DRUG WAR RALLY
October 28, 2002
Ken Krawchuk, the Libertarian candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania, will be attending an anti-Drug War rally on Thursday, October 31, from noon to 1 PM on the west side of City Hall in Philadelphia. The public is invited to attend.
"Mr. Rendell and Mr. Fisher are both big drug warriors", Krawchuk stated. "They've put so many drug offenders behind bars that we're now releasing murderers and rapists from our overcrowded prisons to make room for pot-smoking Grateful Dead fans. That's insane!. If you had a choice, who would you put in that $35,000-a-year prison cell - a murderer or a pot smoker? Mr. Fisher and Mr. Rendell have repeatedly made that choice, and it's the wrong one."
Krawchuk has pledged to pardon all non-violent drug offenders on his first day in office. However, he specifically excludes prisoners who have hurt someone, robbed or defrauded someone, or dealt drugs to children. But he promises to pardon all other drug offenders.
"There are so many reasons to decriminalize drugs, and the tide of public sentiment is finally turning on this very-Libertarian issue. Certainly drugs are bad, but almost everyone now realizes how the drug laws take that bad situation and make it much, much worse. They take a social problem and make it a criminal problem. Making drugs illegal drives up the cost, which forces addicts to steal. The huge profits fuel organized crime and smugglers. Kids end up being victims in the crossfire between warring drug lords. You don't see people shooting each other over alcohol - you used to see that, but then we ended Prohibition. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and it's past time we stopped repeating history. I'm committed to bringing peace back to the streets and ending our failed experiment with drug prohibition."
"There's also the constitutional issue", Krawchuk continued. "If it took a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol, why doesn't it take a constitutional amendment to ban pot? Then there's also a huge humanitarian issue, because medicinal marijuana is prohibited by law. I can attest from personal experience with friends and family to the value of marijuana as a medicine. The obvious question is: Why do Mr. Rendell and Mr. Fisher want to persecute the sick?"
Founded in 1971, the Libertarian Party is the third largest political party in the state and the nation, with over 500 elected and appointed officials currently serving in office nationwide, and 71 in Pennsylvania, more than any other state except California. Like the Founding Fathers, Libertarians believe that you have a God-given, inalienable right to conduct your life as you see fit, without interference, so long as you respect the rights and property of others. For more information about the Libertarian Party, the public is invited to contact the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania at www.LpPa.org or (800) R-RIGHTS, or the National Libertarian Party at Lp.org or (202) 333-0008.
The Krawchuk campaign can be contacted at 215-881-9696, info@KenK.org, www.KenK.org, or c/o PO Box 260, Cheltenham Penna., 19012.
