Gingrich ‘Proposed the Death Penalty for Marijuana’

He may be the GOP front runner and be considered by some to be a proponent of individual liberty and Constitutional rule of law, but opponents argue that Gingrich may have taken the marijuana debate a little too far by pushing for the death penalty as a punishment for those found guilty of drug trafficking. Millions of Americans smoke marijuana for personal and therapeutic use, and some states have recognized and legalized its benefits in medicine:

Via Raw Story:

Over the weekend, struggling Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson reminded MSNBC viewers that GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich had once to called to punish some drug offenders with death.

“Newt Gingrich, in 1997, proposed the death penalty for marijuana — for possession of marijuana above a certain quantity of marijuana,” Johnson explained. “And yet, he is among 100 million Americans who’ve smoked marijuana.”

“I would love to have a discussion with him on the fact that he smoked pot, and under the wrong set of circumstance he proposed the death penalty for, potentially, something that he had committed. I have troubles with that,” he added.

Via Republican-Candidates.org:

In 1981, Gingrich introduced a bill to the House floor that sought “to provide for the therapeutic use of marihuana in situations involving life-threatening or sense-threatening illnesses and to provide adequate supplies of marihuana for such use.”
September 16, 1981, H.R.4498, 97th Congress, 2D Session

Gingrich would explain his shift in position in an interview with journalist Hilary Stout in 1996.
“See, when I smoked pot it was illegal, but not immoral. Now, it is illegal AND immoral. The law didn’t change, only the morality… That’s why you get to go to jail and I don’t.”
August 8, 1996, Wall Street Journal

He went on to introduce H.R. 4170 (Drug Importer Death Penalty Act of 1996) to the House of Representatives, which sought to “provide a sentence of death for certain importations of significant quantities of controlled substances”. 
Section 2: Increased Penalties For International Drug Trafficking