Wrong approach on marijuana

James Witherspoon, Las Vegas

Monday, Jan. 20, 2014 | 2:02 a.m.

I don’t want to start the new year by bashing President Barack Obama, but as I see him and politicians from both parties criticizing countries such as Cuba and China and advocating the release of political prisoners, I can’t help but wonder how they can do this with a straight face.

China and Cuba may have hundreds of political prisoners, but in this country we have hundreds of thousands of political prisoners. Our political prisoners are not in jail for crimes against the government such as treason, political coups or murder, though.

They’ve been rotting away in jail for years for smoking a joint. Yet we consume alcohol like water, and it’s killed millions and destroyed more families than weed ever will.

There has not been one known overdose death from smoking a joint. Yet these same politicians who fill our jails with these youngsters so that they can appear hard on a victimless crime never even mention these kids whose lives they are destroying.

I have to admire Rand Paul and his father, Ron Paul, for speaking out against this injustice while Obama makes a feeble attempt at compassion by pardoning eight people out of hundreds of thousands of victims of our political justice system.

Once again, Obama is thinking small while his political enemies think big. I rarely agree with anything Ron or Rand Paul say, but this time they are right on the mark.