michael phelps should not have apologized, and this is why

thanks, mac, for the legwork on this.

* “If someone wants to do drugs … as long as he or she isn’t corrupting minors or driving under the influence or endangering others, shouldn’t a person have that right?”
o Brad Pitt

* Please don’t throw your shit at me… unless that shit resembles a bag of marijuana
o Les Claypool

* Legalize it, and I will advertise it.
o Peter Tosh

* “Why use up the forests which were centuries in the making and the mines which required ages to lay down, if we can get the equivalent of forest and mineral products in the annual growth of the hemp fields?”
o Henry Ford

* If the words “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” don’t include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn’t worth the hemp it was written on.
o Terence McKenna

* Congress should definitely consider decriminalizing possession of marijuana… We should concentrate on prosecuting the rapists and burglars who are a menace to society.
o Dan Quayle U.S. Representative and Vice president (March 1977)

* Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.
o Ronald Reagan, U.S. President (1980-1988)

* Make the most of the Indian hemp seed, and sow it everywhere!
o George Washington in a note to his gardener at Mount Vernon (1794), The Writings of George Washington, Volume 33, page 270 (Library of Congress)

* Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marihuana in private for personal use… Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marihuana.
o Jimmy Carter, U.S. President in a message to the U.S. Congress (1977)

* When I was in England I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t inhale.
o Bill Clinton, U.S. President (1993-2001)

* I never understood that line. The point was to inhale. That was the point.
o Barack Obama, When asked, “Unlike other presidents, did you inhale?”

* You bet I did -— and I enjoyed it.
o Michael Bloomberg - New York City Mayor, when asked if he had ever smoked marijuana.

* The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.
o Carl Sagan

“Hey, hey, hey. Smoke weed everyday.”
o Dave Chappelle

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