‘College Was a Long Time Ago’ for Rand Paul and Laughing Gas Tale
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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Rand Paul has never been quiet when it comes to voicing his disapproval of America’s war on drugs.
And a new profile in the New Yorker, which traced the Republican’s life from childhood to potential 2016 presidential contender, details a time when the Kentucky senator reportedly engaged in a little drug use of his own.
One of Paul’s classmates at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, told the New Yorker that he once obtained tanks of nitrous oxide from a friend studying dentistry. Another colleague added that the three of them then attached a scuba mask directly to the tank and got high on laughing gas.
“College was a long time ago,” Paul, 51, said in a statement to the New Yorker without clarifying whether the incident actually happened. “The high jinks reported by others make my college experience sound way more adventuresome than it actually was.”
The New Yorker also addressed a GQ.com story that described Paul’s time in a Baylor secret society, the NoZe Brotherhood, when Paul and a friend pretended to kidnap a woman from her apartment, told her to smoke pot and made her pray to “Aqua Buddha” in a creek. Paul’s friends made light of the alleged event to the New Yorker; one said that the Aqua Buddha was an inside joke on the Baylor swim team and no drugs were involved that night.
While Paul, who’s an ophthalmologist, acknowledges that college was a while ago and drugs are bad for you, he believes the punishment for using them is much worse.
“I think that drugs are a scourge and are bad for young people, but a lifetime in prison as punishment is not the answer,” Paul said in a USA Today op-ed article. “I believe in redemption and forgiveness for the 19-year-old kid who made a mistake by purchasing drugs. I think that young people deserve a second chance.”
The potential presidential candidate for 2016 has lately been making increased efforts to reach out to young voters and minority communities.
Paul introduced a piece of legislation called the REDEEM Act alongside Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., in July, which would overhaul the criminal justice system and help low-level offenders by restoring their voting rights and having their nonviolent criminal records expunged so they can get jobs.
Weeks later, Paul announced the RESET Act, which would reclassify low-level drug possession offenses to misdemeanors. It would also eliminate differences in sentencing for offenses involving crack cocaine and powder cocaine, because penalties for crack cocaine are more severe than those for the powder version.
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