Evangelical leader Pat Robertson revealed his inner Ron Paul yesterday, as he expressed support for legalizing marijuana and added that the war on drugs has failed.
“I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol,” Robertson told the New York Times. “I’ve never used marijuana and I don’t intend to, but it’s just one of those things that I think: this war on drugs just hasn’t succeeded.”
Robertson framed his position in terms of overcrowding in prisons. “Prisons are being overcrowded with juvenile offenders having to do with drugs,” he observed. “And the penalties, the maximums, some of them could get 10 years for possession of a joint of marijuana.”
Ron Paul views the drug war similarly. “[T]he war against marijuana causes so much hardship and accomplishes nothing,” he said last year. “[T]he modern day war on drugs started with Richard Nixon and it’s a catastrophe, just as the prohibition was a catastrophe.”
