Ron Paul rips DEA over San Diego case

At UCSD, candidate talks of ending drug war, cutting government and foreign intervention

A young Ron Paul supporter joins the crowd greeting the presidential at  UC San Diego's Warren Mall Friday night.
A young Ron Paul supporter joins the crowd greeting the presidential at UC San Diego's Warren Mall Friday night. — Earnie Grafton
Ron Paul — Earnie Grafton

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul brought his limited-government campaign to UC San Diego Friday night, assailing federal officials for their handling of a 23-year-old engineering student accidentally left in a holding cell without food or water for five days last month.

"If we need laws to restrain individuals in any way possible they should be state laws, it shouldn't be the federal government and it shouldn't be the DEA," said Rep. Paul, R-Texas, also taking aim at the Federal Reserve and Transportation Security Administration.


Daniel Chong filed a $20 million claim Wednesday that referred to his ordeal as torture, including having to drink his own urine to survive and eating his broken glasses during hallucinations from severe dehydration.

The top local official for the Drug Enforcement Administration, William R. Sherman, apologized in a written statement and said he wanted to "express that this event is not indicative of the high standards that I hold my employees to.”

Such an abuse of liberty deserves justice, Paul said, but it's difficult to stomach passing the potential costs on to taxpayers.

"What I would like to do is make sure that any agent of government that abuses the rights of an individual, they personally are liable and should be sued," he said.

Elizabeth Goodrich, a history and pre-med student and president of UCSD Youth for Paul, said the mood on campus over the incident has been shock and outrage.

“I think we all grew up with the belief that the government and the police were there to protect us,” said Goodrich, 22. “He wasn’t even charged and that happened to him. I think that really scares a lot of people. It was a really horrific thing to happen.”

Many students identify with Paul’s positions on ending the war on drugs, staying out of foreign countries and generally starving the government beast. Paul’s ardent followers and his ability to raise boatloads of campaign cash online have allowed the three-time presidential candidate to continue traveling the country, including several recent visits to college campuses where he’s drawn thousands of spectators.

Paul said the drug war has done more harm to individuals than illicit drugs ever have.

"In a free society, you ought to be able to smoke what you want, drink what you want, and if you do any harm to anybody else, you are in big trouble," he said. "If you do harm to yourself, you have to suffer the consequences and you can't go begging for help from your neighbor."

He told the estimated 3,500 people gathered inside the Warren Mall that it's a major task to turn around the ship of state because it's been drifting from the original intent of the Constitution for the last 100 years — "and tragically you as a generation are inheriting it."


