Florida Superior Court Judge, James P. Gray, Joins Gary Johnson Calling for Drug War Reform

NOTE: This article is displayed as printed in the Daily Lobo. We asked for clarification for their reference to Florida judge. It appears Gray is from California.

A Republican judge from California's conservative Orange County has added his voice to that of New Mexico's governor in calling for debate and reform of U.S. drug policy.

Superior Court Judge James P. Gray stopped short of saying he would legalize drugs, but he agrees with Gov. Gary Johnson that the U.S. drug war is a failure. Calling Johnson a traitor to the drug war, as some have, pays the governor a compliment, he said.

"My view is that someone who is a traitor to a failed policy is a patriot to common sense and the common good," Gray said before leaving for Tuesday night's drug policy forum here.

"It is time that we as a society address the issue of drug policy," Gray said.

But is legalization the answer?

"No," he said. He would endorse a combination of measures including drug maintenance programs, drug substitution as seen in methadone programs, legalization of hemp production and needle-exchange programs -- but would not legalize the drugs, he said.

"The drugs themselves are dangerous," he said by phone Monday, "and we want to do everything under the law we can to discourage people from using them."

Gray would like to keep drugs under strict regulation but eliminate the profit motive for illegal drugs, just as ending Prohibition cut the profit motive from bootleging liquor.

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