Introduction: Marc J. Victor is an accomplished attorney who is often invited to speak to audiences across Arizona. In 2004 he founded Marc J. Victor, P.C. in Chandler, Arizona, which now includes four attorneys and several paralegals. Marc has supervised associate attorneys in criminal law, personal injury, civil rights and commercial litigation matters, personally represented thousands of clients in state and federal trial level and appellate felony matters including first and second degree murder, sex cases, gun cases, major drug cases, complex white collar cases, federal appeals, and other complex state and federal matters. He has personally tried several first degree murder cases including death eligible matters, successfully argued before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California and researched, drafted and argued hundreds of criminal motions and appeals. His weekly radio show, "The Attorney for Freedom Now Show," airs Thursdays at 5pm Mountain time on KQCKLive.com. 

Daily Bell: It's a pleasure to speak with you, Marc. You've had quite a legal career when it comes to addressing the state of civil liberties in the US through criminal defense cases. Has a particular case, or type of case, had a particularly powerful impact on you? How so?

Marc Victor: Obviously, drug cases have had a huge impact on me because they are victimless crimes and they oftentimes carry mandatory minimum sentences along with them. Sometimes they're ridiculously long, outrageously immoral mandatory minimum sentences. I think it is an outrage that we put peaceful people behind bars for sometimes decades, so that's had a huge impact on me.

When I say peaceful people I'm talking about not just people who peacefully possess a drug but I'm also including people who sell a drug so long as they are not selling to minors, people who grow drugs or manufacture drugs and people who transport drugs. To me, they are all peaceful activities.

Daily Bell: Let's continue with the topic of the War on Drugs, an issue that we've covered extensively as we've closely watched the widening legalization of marijuana. You debated Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery in March, arguing that each of us should be able to make whatever choices we want with regard to our own bodies as long as we don't encroach on anyone else, and to get government completely out of marijuana. Summarize the crux of your argument regarding the legal status of marijuana, please.

Marc Victor: I did debate Bill Montgomery, but I had a much more recent debate, about a month ago, with this fellow named Seth Liebsohn. We actually each opened with a two-minute statement, and if you just look at my two minute opening statement, I think that pretty well summarizes what my argument is.

I rise tonight to support a free society. Said another way, I think you ought to be in charge of yourself. That's because I think you own yourself. Owning yourself, I'll admit, is a big responsibility. It means you get to decide what is good for you. You get to decide how to use your own bod or your property or your money or your time. You get to weigh the risks for yourself. You get to determine the risk-reward ratio for yourself of any activity, not just smoking marijuana, and you also get the consequences of those choices. This is what a free society is about. ... You ought to have the final say on your life and the drug war is just simply incompatible with a free society. It's a war against peaceful people. It's about some people imposing their conclusions upon others by force.

Freedom can be scary, it can be intimidating and some people aren't ready for freedom. That's why they want a babysitter running their lives. Our government has become a babysitter. That's the nanny state. The nanny state is also incompatible with a free society. ... Free people do not need nor do they want babysitters so don't be afraid of your freedom. It can also be rewarding, wonderfully empowering. The essence of freedom is the very right to choose for yourself. It's the right to control the course of your own life. But freedom isn't the right to do whatever you want to do. It's the right to control your body, property money and time, not someone else's. You get to do what you want with your property, not somebody else's. Isn't that a good place to draw the legal line? You get to do what you want with your property, not somebody else's. ...

I'm talking about competent adults peacefully running their own lives. That's what I support. Some people judge marijuana as unsafe or unhealthy or unwise or immoral or bad. That's fine. I say to those people, don't use it, don't let your kids use it. But what right do you have to impose your judgments upon other people? I say you have none.

In essence, I think competent adults are in charge of themselves. I think they're self-owners. I think they should get to decide what goes in their body and I think that is without regard to whether it is healthy or unhealthy or moral or immoral or good or bad or right or wrong or whatever. To me, peaceful people get to decide what goes into their bodies.