A bipartisan marijuana myth

It seems that no presidential debate this year would be complete without denunciations of the drug laws, which, it is alleged, result in long prison terms for thousands of people, disproportionately African-Americans, who are guilty only of low-level offenses, thus fueling "mass incarceration."

At the Republican debate on Sept. 16, former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina charged that "two-thirds of the people in our prisons are there for nonviolent offenses, mostly drug-related."

Apropos of former Florida governor Jeb Bush's admitted youthful marijuana use, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky noted that "there is at least one prominent example on the stage of someone who says they smoked pot in high school, and yet the people going to jail for this are poor people, often African-Americans and often Hispanics, and yet the rich kids who use drugs aren't."

When Democrats faced off Oct. 13, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, said he is for...

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