Carlos Santana calls for the legalization of marijuana

When Carlos Santana called up to chat in advance of his show at Rogers Arena next Saturday (August 27), I asked the Mexican-born guitar hero how he felt about the horrific drug-gang problems currently plaguing his native land, and whether he thought there was any hope for the embattled country. Turns out he's got a solution that everyone from Marc Emery to Jeffrey Lebowski would obviously abide.

“It’s the same thing that America has to do," he replied. "We need to invest more in education than incarceration. We need to legalize marijuana, you know, and that would stop the wars really, really quick. Legalize marijuana, invest all that money only for teachers, schools, and students—because the more you educate people, the less people will do violent things. Because people do violence when they have a real lack of self-worth, you know, but here in the U.S. they invest more in incarceration than education.

"So it’s not only Mexico," he adds, "the United States has its own problems cut out for itself. With all the money that is spent on the Pentagon, if we didn’t give it to them for about a month, we wouldn’t be in the mess that we are right now with going bankrupt. Yeah, I'm not afraid to say it. A lot of people are afraid: 'Woo, don’t go there.' Whatever. You ask me, I tell you. Now I want to tell you the truth, and the truth is that we invest too much in fear, and very little in love. It’s all fine once you get past the fear.”

For more from Santana, including his thoughts on covering AC/DC and how he gets his amazing guitar tone, see the feature story in next week's Georgia Straight.

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