Share this
Twitter
Myspace
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Slashdot
Furl
Yahoo
Technorati
Newsvine
Facebook
Export PDF
Print
E-mail
TagsBY YURI RESETOVS
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Pat Robertson, a televangelist and host of the "700 Club," has again made controversial headlines with his support of marijuana legalization.
“I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol,” the 81-year-old outspoken broadcaster said in an interview this past Wednesday, Yahoo! News reported. "If people can go into a liquor store and buy a bottle of alcohol and drink it at home legally, then why do we say that the use of this other substance is somehow criminal?"
Despite a record-high support (Gallup poll suggests 50 percent of Americans in favor, October 2011) for legalization, some argue that the government’s lack of support comes from lobbyists who get rich off of the War on Drugs. Corruption, or the money in politics, is what helps keep the substance illegal. “One of the primary sources for cash for more policing activities are Federal grants for penalizing illegal drug use,” writes Lee Fang for AltNet.org.
“Defenders of marijuana prohibition…must be wondering if it’s only a matter of time before theirs proves to be a lost cause,” Robertson stated. “I believe in working with the hearts of people, and not locking them up.”
He said that there’s no single event which led him to this view, but rather that the nation “has gone overboard on this concept of being tough on crime,” some of which doesn’t make sense: “Prisons are being overcrowded with juvenile offenders having to do with drugs. And the penalties, the maximums, some of them could get 10 years for possession of a joint of marijuana.”
“It’s just one of these things that I think: this war on drugs just hasn’t succeeded,” Robertson stated.
The conservative leader, who unsuccessfully campaigned in the 1988 presidential elections for the Republican Party, is not an advocate for the use of “narcotics in any way, shape or form,” has “never used marijuana” and doesn’t intend to. Nevertheless, Robertson “absolutely” supports the ballot measures in Colorado and Washington State, which would allow for commercial pot sales to persons 21 and older to possess a small amount of the illegal substance, the New York Times states.
This is not the first time the TV talk show host has made public headlines that were deemed controversial by Christians around the country. Just over two years ago, Robertson attributed the earthquake in Haiti to the people’s “pact to the devil,” in accordance to half the country’s Afro-Cuban voodoo faith. In September of last year, Robertson contributed his view on divorce in light of Alzheimer’s: the husband of an Alzheimer’s patient “should divorce and move on,” adding that Alzheimer’s is “a kind of death.” Most recently, he blamed the tornado victims for building houses “in places where tornados are apt to happen,” saying that “God doesn’t send tornadoes to hurt people.”
It was in 2010 that Robertson, the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, called for the ending of mandatory prison sentences for marijuana possession convictions, thus becoming a self-proclaimed “hero of the hippie culture,” The Associated Press reported. Not surprisingly, many Christian groups as well as government officials oppose the legalization for medical or recreational use of the plant.
Despite its illegal label by the Federal government, medical marijuana is legal and available in 16 states and the District of Columbia, including New Jersey. 14 states also have some kind of marijuana decriminalization law, which removes or lowers penalties for possession.
