Pat Robertson Wants to Decriminalize Pot
Update: Someone's on cleanup duty. This statement arrived in my emailbox at 12:11 p.m. Thursday, via DRC Public Relations:
CLARIFICATION OF MARIJUANA COMMENTS:
Dr. Robertson did not call for the decriminalization of marijuana. He was advocating that our government revisit the severity of the existing laws because mandatory drug sentences do harm to many young people who go to prison and come out as hardened criminals. He was also pointing out that these mandatory sentences needlessly cost our government millions of dollars when there are better approaches available. Dr. Robertson's comments followed a CBN News story about a group of conservatives who have proven that faith-based rehabilitation for criminals has resulted in lower repeat offenders and saved the government millions of dollars. Dr. Robertson unequivocally stated that he is against the use of illegal drugs.
Chris Roslan
Spokesman for CBN
Watch the clip again. Robertson said: "I just believe that criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing possession of a few ounces of pot, and that kind of thing -- it's costing us a fortune, and it's ruining young people." Unless Robertson wants to claim that he's for "costing us a fortune" and "ruining young people," that sounds like a call for decriminalization to me. I'm sorry to see him walking it back, but I'm glad he's at least standing by his opposition to mandatory minimum sentencing.
