The Virginian-Pilot
©
Proponents of decriminalizing marijuana appear to have a new and surprising ally: Pat Robertson.
The famously conservative founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network said on a recent episode of CBN's daily talk show "The 700 Club" that putting pot users in jail is costly and counterproductive.
"We're locking up people that take a couple of puffs of marijuana and the next thing you know, they've got 10 years," Robertson said on the Dec. 16 show. "They've got mandatory sentences, and these judges just throw up their hands and say, 'There's nothing we can do - it's mandatory sentences.'
"We've got to take a look at what we're considering crimes, and that's one of them. I mean, I'm not exactly for use of drugs, don't get me wrong. But I just believe that criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing the possession of a few ounces of pot and that kind of thing, I mean, it's costing us a fortune, and it's ruining young people.
"Young people go into prisons, they go in as youths and they come out as hardened criminals, and it's not a good thing."
Robertson's comments followed a news report on religiously based alternatives to hard prison time. Politicians' insistence on incarceration as an all-purpose crime-fighting tool has backfired, the Virginia Beach-based broadcaster said.
"You know, it got to be a big deal in campaigns: 'He's tough on crime, tough on crime. Lock 'em up,' " Robertson said. "That's the way these guys ran, and they got elected. But that wasn't the answer."
Chris Roslan, a Robertson spokesman, insisted in an e-mail clarification Thursday that the broadcaster "did not call for the decriminalization of marijuana. He was advocating that our government revisit the severity of the existing laws."
Advocates of decriminalization, however, clearly felt that they had a new comrade in arms.
"Holy Hemp!" was the headline on a blog posting Wednesday by Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML.
"If I didn't watch it with my own eyes I might not have believed it possible," St. Pierre wrote, complimenting Robertson for making a "cogent argument" for change. "Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."
Bill Sizemore, (757) 446-2276, bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Twitter
Google
Yahoo
It's no longer a political
It's no longer a political debate; it is a question of idiocy. It is obvious that the laws cause nothing more than damage. Far more than the 'drug' ever has. All of the lives broken over the laws and we can all easily obtain weed right now. The price hasn't risen in decades. It's silly. Bad laws, bad science, and police desperate for funding keep the myth alive. All the while we sit back and ignore the laws are responsible for killing thousands to the south of the border. Remember in Half Baked when Dave got jeered at the Narcotics Anonymous meeting for claiming to be addicted to pot? We all got the joke. It's funny that when you get caught it is likely your lawyer likes to burn one when available.
Rastarfarianism
I figured it out: Pat Robertson is about to become a Rastafarian.
Well, blow me down!
I never expected anything sensible to come out of that man's mouth. Maybe it's because it his outrageous gibberish that gets all the publicity. But he is right. If you compare the crime and deaths and destruction caused by alcohol consumption to the damage caused by pot, you have to wonder who is running the show. No one has ever killed themselves by smoking too much pot. Who has ever heard of a fight breaking out between people smoking pot? And if people are sitting at home smoking pot, so what? In two hours, their high will be gone and they won't have one of those terrible morning-after hangovers. You might eat too much while smoking pot, but that won't kill you immediately. The war on drugs is a failure. Regulate them. Tax them.
Goes to show
Goes to show, even a blind nut can find a squirrel!
The pendulum is swinging
Swing Low, sweet Chariot . . . .
For another point of view and more discussion:
http://goo.gl/tzTZQ
Just Looked This Up
"Even peaceful marijuana smokers sentenced to "life MMS" must serve a life sentence with no chance of parole." That's in Virginia. Would any of you that voted "No" to decriminalize like to reconsider?
NOT AT ALL!!!
Lock up all those pot smoking losers! Pat can pray for them in jail . . .
Worried about your job
Worried about your job security?
i agree on being reasonable
Minor personal amounts is akin to having a bottle of vodka. Now if truckloads are being transported across the state or otherwise, then same applies for moonshiners.
Let's make room for the creeps we don't want free wandering around our neighborhoods.
OK
It we really want to put the cartels out of business then we should make it perfectly legal for people to grow their own. Maybe we can limit it to 6 plants per person or something like they do in Northern California. People won't spend a lot of money for something they can grow themselves like tomatoes and at least the consumer can know it isn't a tainted product.