JUDGE JAMES GRAY IN SENATE BID

Will Challenge Boxer, Call for End to Drug War

A leading US anti-prohibitionist, California Superior Court Judge
James Gray, has announced that is he running for the US Senate under
the banner of the Libertarian Party. If he wins the statewide
Libertarian primary on March 2, he will challenge sitting Senator
Barbara Boxer (D) and her as yet undecided Republican opponent. His
campaign will focus on ending the war on drugs, Gray said as he
announced his candidacy November 19 at the Old Courthouse Building in
Santa Ana.

"Every single vote I get will legitimately be seen in favor of
repealing drug prohibition," he said. "I want to make this clear: If
we focus our campaign on the drug war, people who agree with us will
not worry about 'throwing away their vote' on a third-party candidate.
Our campaign will convince them, because of our anti-war stand, that
every vote will rightfully be seen as a vote to end the drug war."

Gray does not expect to defeat Boxer, but does hope to win 15% of the
vote, which he said will be enough to redefine the debate about the
drug laws and the war on drugs. "If we capture only a third of the
votes of people who favor drug reform... that would be enough to make
us a political force to be reckoned with and to put the drug war into
the nation's political debate," he said.

Gray has drafted a four-part platform that includes reining in federal
government spending, returning control of education and health care
programs to local governments, requiring the federal government to pay
the cost of illegal immigration, and ending the drug war. Gray's drug
policy plank reads as follows:

"Repeal the failed and hopeless War on Drugs by restricting the role
of the federal government to assisting each state to enforce its
chosen laws. Crime was reduced by more than 20% within one year after
we pursued this course with the repeal of Alcohol Prohibition, and the
same results will be realized when we finally repeal Drug Prohibition.
People must be held accountable for their actions, instead of for what
they put into their bodies. The War on Drugs has directly created an
enormously large and lucrative black market that has corrupted
institutions, people in all walks of life, and, most especially,
children, here and all around the world. In addition, it has enabled
the sale of illicit drugs to provide huge amounts of funding for
terrorists. Our policy should be changed for specified drugs like
marijuana to be strictly regulated for distribution to adults -- and
taxed -- and users of other drugs should be allowed legal access to
them under the strict supervision of medical professionals. Medical
programs of this kind are successfully reducing crime, drug usage and
health problems today in countries like Switzerland and Germany, and
we can emulate their success."

A California superior court judge for two decades, Gray went off the
reservation in the early 1990s by calling for an end to prohibition, and in
2001 published "Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It:
A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs," a scathing attack on
prohibitionist policies. In that book, Gray argued that the war on drugs
has failed to reduce the amount of illegal drugs but has succeeded in
eroding the civil liberties of Americans while at the same time making
drugs more dangerous. "Drug policy reform is the most important issue
facing this great country, and our so-called War on Drugs is our biggest
failure," Gray wrote. The answer is realistic drug education, drug
treatment, harm reduction programs, decriminalization, and the regulated
sale of drugs, Gray concluded.

Since then, Gray has been a prominent speaker against the drug war and
an effective advocate for reform. He has also resigned his membership
in the Republican Party and registered as a Libertarian. In an article
in the Libertarian Party house organ, Liberty, Gray wrote that he
joined the party because "I realized that the major parties will never
begin the process of ending the War on Drugs. The Republican and
Democratic parties are invested in the drug war, committed to it. "It
takes another party to do that -- one that holds dear the principles
of liberty. The Libertarian Party is my natural home. And it is the
Libertarian Party's historic mission to begin the peace process in the
War on Drugs."

Visit http://www.judgejimgray4Senate.com for further information.