Posted on 03/08/2012 9:21:14 PM PST by Mariner
RICHMOND, Va. -- Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says marijuana should be legalized and treated like alcohol because the government's war on drugs has failed.
The outspoken evangelical Christian and host of "The 700 Club" on the Virginia Beach-based Christian Broadcasting Network he founded said the war on drugs is costing taxpayers billions of dollars. He said people should not be sent to prison for marijuana possession.
The 81-year-old first became a self-proclaimed "hero of the hippie culture" in 2010 when he called for ending mandatory prison sentences for marijuana possession convictions.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Sorry, but I don’t just disregard or throw people away who have problems, I try to help as best I can most of the time to no avail.
Most of them are extended family members and co-workers, and they are not the only people I associate with.
"Drugs are menacing our society. They're threatening our values and undercutting our institutions. They're killing our children." -- President Ronald Reagan.
I’m not talking about terminal cancer patients, and there are many good doctors, but there are enough of them prescribing pain killers to people who don’t need them to keep the problem growing - and we are all paying for it through Medicaid taxes and higher healthcare premiums.
“The prohibition of alcohol...”demon alcohol” itself. Same with pot.”
You are persuaded by the libertarians. Live and let live. OK. But, my point is that sometimes society needs to protect vulnerable members.
I don’t want to live in a city where fifty percent of the workers are stoned. (Seemed that way when I visited Palm Springs in December).
To compare pot to alcohol is simply a false analogy.
Alcohol has been a pervasive part of human culture for 10,000 years. We drink wine at meals and at religious rituals. It is nothing like pot. People smoke pot to get high.
No one smokes pot to express culture. You can drink without getting drunk. To ban one and not the other is not a contradiction but social sanity.
Did you watch the same program I did? I believe it was on the History Channel but I’m not 100% sure.
If we legalize Pot the the whole country would be like Obama — who admitted that he smoke a lot of pot and appeared stoned during a 60 Minutes interview.
Don’t miss watching this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMSB4A1iJD4
“I am watching family and friends struggle with the addiction for years now and watching their lives fall apart.”
Maybe these individuals should exercise a little of the personal responsibility that comes with the freedom they have to make their own decisions?
There are millions of Americans who reponsibly gamble, drink and engage in other vices — marijuana for one — and do so responsibly while there are some who gamble away their savings, drink themselves to death or die of overdoses of harder drugs, devastating families in the process.
Are we to have the federal government ban gambling or drinking because a certain number of people are hopelessly irresponsible to begin with? These same people will find a way to self-destruct whether a given activity is legal or not. It all comes down to personal liberty and responsibility.
You can have a liberal nanny-state dictating your every action to you because it knows best or there are those who make bad decisions. I’ll make my own decisions and take responsibility for my own actions, thank you.
“No one smokes pot to express culture.”
You’ve never been to a Pink Floyd concert!
I just read about a triple-murder in eastern Washington State-—a mother and her two sons, a 3rd grader and a 5th grader. All three were strangled by a 22-year-old LOSER that the family felt sorry for and took in to help out. Two friends told police that this LOSER came over to their house hours after the murders to play video games after a night of cocaine and smoking pot. And there are thousands more stories like these out there. Yes, our society definitely needs more LOSERS like him. P.S. If you’re wondering, this LOSER shot and killed himself later that day.
Yes, that special was amazing.
That's the funniest damn thing I've heard in the past 4 hours.
It make come as a dramatic shock to you, but alcohol has killed more people, and destroyed more families, than any drug, ever. Alcohol is a vicious mass murdering drug, when compared to something like pot. The graveyards are jammed with drinkers and victims of drinkers.
Never trusted Pat Robertson. My intuition always told me the guy was fake. Never for one minute ever got the impression that he genuinely knew God. And the fact that he is now condoning the legalization of a dangerous psychotropic drug justifies my suspicions.
Marijuana is a soul destroyer. Evil. And Pat Robertson is wrong. And don’t no pot heads out there lecture me. I know exactly what I’m talking about.
Maybe.
Could also be that you've just been indoctrinated by hefty doses of government propaganda.
People steal because they want televisions and we don’t ban televisions.
Could also be that you've just been indoctrinated by hefty doses of government propaganda."
Could be that I have first hand experience too.
Any justification for banning painkillers can be applied to banning alcohol.
Alcohol is deadlier than, for example, codeine.
the Bible says there are none righteous, no not even one.
So did a lot of the people that pushed through Prohibition. It became plain though that the damage caused by Prohibition was worse than the effects of the substance. It made criminal enterprises very profitable, and those profits led to violence on the part of criminals fighting to keep their piece of the action as well as corruption of employees at all levels of government. It also led many people to distrust the government, even to the point of considering it the enemy. Sure, you can stop people from engaging in certain behaviors by holding a gun to their heads, but they generally resent that. I see the same thing happening now with the drug war.
The fact is, there is a fairly high percentage of the population that has used marijuana at some point in their lives, and those that I know seem about as normal as anyone else. Sure there are some oddballs, but they'd be oddballs even if they had never used it.
I can’t believe they gave that stuff to kids!
Marijuana is hardly evil. Cocaine? Yes. Crack? Yes. Meth? Yes.
I’ve smoked pot and my soul is fully intact.
Somehow I doubt the Marijuana had something to do with the murder.
This idea that idea that someone can do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t harm others isn’t entirely the case.
That is my main issue with pot (especially harder drugs) is the health issues related to long term use.
Once again, who pays who those..probably not the pot head/useer but other people.
Now if they opted out of any health care services related to long term use then maybe its truely a matter of individual choice.
“Drug use is wrong because it is immoral and it is immoral because it enslaves the mind and destroys the soul.” -James Q. Wilson
CaptainCrunch, marijuana may indeed be a soul destroyer, but alcohol destroys souls, relationships, lives and families.
When alcohol gets a grip on a human being, for a single unusual night or the throes of ongoing addiction, there are few drugs as destructive or evil.
Sure, we can all have a beer and not get drunk or crazy. And it is also true one cannot smoke pot without having an effect.
But once people cross the dose level for alcohol, they can become wildly unpredictable, and behavior can run the gamut from giggling-tipsy to homicidal with every behavior variant in between.
Ask any cop or healthcare worker. There is a common theme in incidents they have ALL been involved in which range from the absurdly funny to the frighteningly scary, and that common theme is alcohol.
I say this from the perspective of someone who works in healthcare and who grew up with an alcoholic parent. There is no comparison whatsoever.
Set him straight Al Osika.
Edited:
This idea that someone can do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t harm others isn’t entirely the case when it comes to pot/drugs.
My main issue with pot (especially harder drugs) is the health issues related to long term use.
Once again, who pays for the health related issues related to pot/drugs..probably not the pot head/useer but other people.
Now if they opted out of any health care services related to long term use maybe then would truely a matter of individual choice.
Otherwise, ya ever known anyone who is truely addicted to video/internet games. SOmething weird about 30-40 y/o spending 12-14 hours a day playing space wars or whatever.
Wouldn't legalizing pot be retrofitting society with the pothead's idea of paradise?
License and regulate it. Stop the killing.
Truth is, alcohol is much worse than pot when it comes to causing someone to harm others
I have to say that in my 60+ years of living, I can’t recall ever seeing a stoned person that wanted to fight anyone. I can’t say the same for persons that have been drinking.
And that is legal and prescribed pharmaceutical. Maranol has been around for many years in many forms....For those with severe pain it has been a good thing
I just read about a triple-murder in eastern Washington State-—a mother and her two sons, a 3rd grader and a 5th grader. All three were strangled by a 22-year-old LOSER that the family felt sorry for and took in to help out. Two friends told police that this LOSER came over to their house hours after the murders to play video games after a night of cocaine and smoking pot. And there are thousands more stories like these out there. Yes, our society definitely needs more LOSERS like him. P.S. If you’re wondering, this LOSER shot and killed himself later that day.
I know about those horrible stories.
Abuse in any form is bad.
And I can assure you that it is my experience that what I said is also true....and I am most definitely NOT co-dependent but thanks for throwing around the psycho-babble. Enjoy your smoke....
The Mafia moved from one form of crime to more sophisticated forms. The only thing that has weakened it ever has been law enforcement take downs. To think that Mafia does not have a massive and effective organization is naive.
Those millions who responsibly gamble, drink, smoke marijuana and the millions who don’t are already paying for the millions of irresponsible ones through taxes that fund social programs, health & drug abuse costs, mortgage assistance programs, unemployment and countless other programs - do you actually think that those costs will not go up dramatically with the legalization of gambling & marijuana ?
That’s the real liberal nanny state, cradle to grave government assistance - find a way to eliminate those programs for the irresponsible first and they you have a case.
I’ve smoked pot and my soul is fully intact.
Same here.
I have to say that in my 60+ years of living, I can’t recall ever seeing a stoned person that wanted to fight anyone. I can’t say the same for persons that have been drinking.
I’m 61 and can say the same.
Provide your documentation that the Mafia is not now only a minor player. Tax (NOT DRUG) prosecutions brought the Mafia low.
Why is it that normally rational, thinking people lose all common sense when it comes to a legalization discussion?
You said:
“That is my main issue with pot (especially harder drugs) is the health issues related to long term use.”
It therefore follows that:
Trans-fats are bad for you. They have have proven, long-term health risks. Ban trans-fats!
Tobacco has proven, long-term health risks. Ban it!
Drinking too much alcohol has proven, long-term health risks. Ban it!
Who pays for the proven, long-term problems asociated with obesity? Should we lock up every over-weight person? Shut down any restaurant that serves a customer a meal over 200 calories? Mandate what foods may be eaten? Why must I pay for the health care services of fat people?
Then you said:
“Now if they opted out of any health care services related to long term use then maybe its truely a matter of individual choice.”
It therefore follows that:
If every fat person opted out of any health care services (or anyone with any health issues opted out of any health care issues related to long term lifestyle choices for that matter) then you might have an argument because it would truely be a matter of individual choice.
Come on... if you look at what you said, objectively, then there is absolutely no way you can believe you have any kind of an argument here.
Pat is making stupid comments lately. Just last month he said he wished Santorum “would stop talking all this theology nonsense”. Since when does a preacher want a public person to stop talking about God???
Pat is also a big Romney supporter. I knew he was senile when I heard that.
When the person talking about God is a Catholic.
I didn’t say anything pro or con. I was replying to the poster who said Switzerland. Thanks for the attitude though...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.