Reddit reviews Dealing Death and Drugs: The Big Business of Dope in the U.S. and Mexico (Cinco Puntos Checkpoint Series)

Rep. Beto O'Rourke wrote a book on ending the drug war. It is available for sale on Amazon

Dealing Death and Drugs: The Big Business of Dope in the U.S. and Mexico

/r/Beto_for_Senate

2009: Beto O’Rourke, as a city council member, fighting against threats from the Democrats (!) and calls for Congress to debate drug legalization - https://www.huffpost.com/entry/drug-legalization-debate_n_157798

In 2011 Beto O'Rourke wrote a book about the war on drugs and its effects on violence - Dealing Death and Drugs: The Big Business of Dope in the U.S. and Mexico

It was the reason he ran against the long-term Democratic incumbent for the House seat.

Watch the first 5 minutes of this video of him being interview by Ryan Grim about how Beto changed the political calculus in how Democrats treat drug policy and discussion about legalization: https://youtu.be/mnZ8y0q2C5Q (...watch the whole video to learn about how Beto was one of the earliest Congressmen to refuse PAC money and how he has rallied against corporate influence in elections)

Watch his Ted Talk from 2016 where he spoke about how marijuana prohibition is racist in its origin (and has ties to El Paso): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXbFZoSMbZI

Beto has been fighting for this topic long before it was the popular thing to do.

Rep. Beto O'Rourke wrote a book on legalizing marijuana that's available for sale on Amazon....

Dealing Death and Drugs: The Big Business of Dope in the U.S. and Mexico.

Everything is on facebook as the other person said.

I like Pete too, but I'll take this opportunity to point out some reasons I like Beto more, if you don't mind.

1. I see Pete as being kind of a smart, pragmatic figure, but he just doesn't seem like the leader of a mass movement. Beto seems like all three of those things to me. Sorry for being vague, but I'm sure you know what I mean.
   
   
2. Here's a big one. Beto is more qualified. Pete was mayor for 8 years, which is an executive experience, true, but of a very small city. Beto was in the city council of El Paso for 7 years, a much larger city, and a city that has unique issues he has to deal with by being on the border. Then he was in Congress for 6 years. That's 13 total years of government experience vs 8, and 6 of Beto's 13 were in the federal government, dealing with federal issues, something Pete has never done.
   
   
3. Related to this, Beto has a proven track record in Congress (despite Democrats being in the minority the entire time he was there, which just makes it more impressive). Overall summary from govtrack
   
   and here's a list of sponsored bills
   
   conserving 7000 acres of public land (sponsored by Beto)
   
   Repealing some portions of the Patriot Act
   
   and cosponsoring a bill to repeal much more of it, although it didn't pass
   
   Sponsoring a bill to reduce wait times for Veteran's claims (it was incorporated into another bill)
   
   and many more bills about veterans and immigration. In addition to the RIGHTS Act he will also be able to point to many other liberal bills he sponsored that didn't become law. He'll be able to say that he's been fighting the good fight.
   
   This is something Pete can't say and an advantage he doesn't have, because he was never in the federal government. I know he has his own local accomplishments, but they are local, and they didn't involve wrangling with Congress, which I believe is a very important skill.
   
   
4. Beto is more of a foil to Trump. Being that he is an anglo dude from a hispanic city, has served it, and is loved there, he is living, breathing proof that the media narrative and the Republican narrative about the relationship between hispanics and nonhispanics is a lie. He can point authoritatively to the fact that walls have not helped in the past, neither has the war on drugs, nor the militarization of the border. He can say that El Paso is in fact a very safe city. He can directly connect those points to his personal experiences serving El Paso (or even his book) and credibly rebuke the core ideology of Trumpian nationalists, moreso than anyone else can.
   
   Positives of Pete over Beto: I think his education and his military experience is very impressive, but neither necessarily would make him a great president. He is also younger by 10 years, but that doesn't really mean much to me. Good luck to both of them though.

Funny you say that, because Beto agrees. He literally wrote a book about it.

He even wrote a book on the subject.

> marijuana legalization

I saw that Booker got some headlines because he just endorsed legalization. Beto's consistently been a proponent and literally wrote a book about it back in 2011.

for proof - written 2011