If there wasn’t video, you wouldn’t believe it.
Over at Gawker is video of Pat Robertson (yes, THAT Pat Robertson) calling for the decriminalization of drugs (or at least, marijuana) on the December 16, 2010 edition of the 700 Club.
“I’m … I’m not exactly for the use of drugs, don’t get me wrong, but I just believe that criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing the possession of a few ounces of pot, that kinda thing it’s just, it’s costing us a fortune and it’s ruining young people. Young people go into prisons, they go in as youths and come out as hardened criminals. That’s not a good thing.”
Ah. There’s a video on YouTube:
(That video says this was on the Dec. 22 edition of the show. Whateva… he said it.)
However you want to take the man’s comments well… given a lot of the other looney statements he’s made in the past, perhaps this is just another. Or perhaps, there’s something sound to what he has to say. And you have to consider where this is coming from and the audience that listens to him and that he has influence over. This is rather against the grain. But for once, I’ll agree with the guy.
As a Christian who has written and spoken against drug prohibition, I was both surprised and gladdened [to hear Robertson’s comments]. Given his influence among Christians and social conservatives, this is very encouraging.
Governments do a lot of silly and sometimes heinous things. The American War on Drugs is both: it is silly, and it is heinous. The economic case for drug legalization is rock-solid and straightforward, and a lot of the maladies and social ills that we associate with drug use are products not of the drugs themselves but of the fact that they are illegal.
Indeed. It’s not like all that violence going down on the US-Mexico border is the result of bad George Lopez jokes or tamale importation issues. It’s drugs.
Carden continues:
As a result of prohibition, we have more violence, stronger drugs, and an army of people with shattered lives. There are important moral consequence, as well, and these are moral consequences that should be especially resonant with Christians. My friend Timothy D. Watkins, a professor of music at Texas Christian University, said it well when I was looking for perspectives on this last year:
“Part of what [being created ‘in the image of God’] entails is the ability to make morally meaningful choices. The story of the Fall in Genesis is in great part about God allowing humans to make choices that are bad for them because without such freedom morality is a meaningless concept. Prohibition is the denial of moral agency.”
Drug prohibition–and any other attempt to regulate private, non-coercive behavior, for that matter–cheapens our humanity. It isn’t like we are getting anything in return. Prohibitions generally give us the exact opposite of what their advocates intend. The war on drugs is a war that is almost all cost with scant benefits.
Well, it all depends who we’re trying to benefit. It’s sure benefitting those directly involved in “the war on drugs”, namely the drug cartels and law enforcement (and perhaps pharmaceutical companies), at the cost is great pain throughout society. But hey… what’s a lot of death and crime when there’s money to be made and special interests to protect, right?
Stuff From Hsoi 
Glad to see Christians taking a practical view on this volatile issue. Even if we believe that drugs are morally wrong, who are we to legislate morality? Despite what some may think, you don’t change people by forcing them to do something.
On the other side of the matter, we can’t even afford the war on drugs.
That’s the thing. Many people equal “legal” with “right/moral” and “illegal” with “wrong/immoral”; those classifications are orthogonal.
I do take solace in more and more people realizing this is something bad and that needs to be stopped… and more and more people are speaking up to that end. I mean, look at the topic of this posting! But when are we going to see some elected officials that work to dismantle it? We need ones willing to step up and run for office, then people to vote them in, then them to work on doing so. Lots of pieces still to fall into place.
The main lesson I learned from my dad the divinity-school theology PhD., overseas missionary, and preacher was: “Your body is a temple, you should not not defile it” (1 Corinthians 6:9) – thus the expression for clean living. No other moral attachments or pronouuncements, and this from a Baptist, albeit a Leftist, and advocate of Liberation Theology…