The preacher and pot
In response to Tamara Dietrich's column, "Pat Robertson, a hero to hippies," this is the first thing he has said in many years that makes sense: Legalize pot, marijuana, whatever name you put to cannabis.
Robertson said, "I think it's just shocking how many of these young people wind up in prison and they get turned into hard-core criminals because they had possession of a very small amount of controlled substance. The whole thing is crazy."
Let's look at the numbers. According to this column, 2.5 million are incarcerated for "soft" nonviolent drug offenses. This costs billions of dollars: $41.3 billion a year on enforcement, $25.7 billion to state and local governments. Legalizing pot alone would save $9 billion. Then, if these drugs are taxed at rates comparable to alcohol and tobacco, it would yield $46.7 billion a year, $8.7 billion from pot.
Most important: It would stop the illegal cartels, i.e., drug lords from foreign countries bringing the drug war into the United States.
I hope Robertson will step up to the plate and be a crusader in this issue (which he says he is not).
I have done research and agree with this column's statement: "The addiction rate for drugs has held fairly steady at 1.3 percent of the population since the late 1800s."
For what it's worth, I smoked pot a few times. I didn't like it, but lots of people do. It's a personal choice. Let us go forward, not back to Prohibition times.
PATRICIA STOCKMEISTER
Winston-Salem
Court system translators
Attorneys from the Civil Rights Division of Attorney General Eric Holder's Department of Justice, headed up by Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez, have come up with the claim that the North Carolina court system's translators have a "conflict of interest" since they are courthouse employees. "In some cases, no translator was provided" to defendants, "impeding their ability to understand complex legal procedures" ("Finding faults N.C. courts," March 9).
Maybe I'm missing something here. Since when is a defendant expected to understand "complex legal procedures"? (Do all lawyers fully understand "complex legal procedures"?) And the big question: How many of those with "limited familiarity with English" are illegal immigrants?
President Obama talks about reducing the national budget, and this group is threatening us with "the court system could be stripped of millions in federal funding and grants." Is this a new cost-cutting scheme to save federal dollars? In fact, the bottom line is that in order to comply with Perez's demands, North Carolina will have to set up a whole new nonjudicial bureaucracy, staffed with "independent" translators on call by local courts. Yet those translators would still be government employees, just as the current translators are.
Also, who would be explaining those "complex legal procedures" for the translators to translate? Ergo: a typical screwed-up government solution.
ARTHUR GORMLEY
Winston-Salem
Animal-abuse mistake
Just when we thought that there was some hope for justice, along comes Superior Court Judge Patrice Hinnant, who gives a disturbing wink and a nod to one of Forsyth County's worst animal abusers, Renan Carter ("Man convicted of horse neglect," March 8).
Carter told the judge that he "made a mistake" when he abused and starved more than 30 horses, three of which died. Some mistake! Perhaps the court was moved by the lawyer's excuse that Carter was going through a divorce and may have been depressed. What wasn't explained was how Carter was able to put his depression on hold while he took care of three horses that he was paid to care for, while watching his starve to death.
Either way, it worked with Judge Hinnant, who sentenced Carter to just three days in jail and fines that just barely cover the cost to taxpayers for providing veterinary care and housing for several dozen horses, plus staff and court time. Chalk up another one for animal abusers and lenient judges.
Unfortunately, Judge Hinnant's term does not expire until 2018. With hope, before the next election she will show a greater willingness to be tough on animal abusers. It also seems to me that a few judges would benefit from some much-needed animal compassion training, and a lot of animals would also benefit.
MELODY HAWKINS
Kernersville
LTE#1: Pat Robertson has never been known to hold his tongue and as he advances in years there will be more slips of the tongue. Maybe, the older he gets the more sense he'll make.
ReplyDeleteI doubt legalizing marijuana will stop the illegal cartels, though. There's still the manufactured, man-made drugs.
LTE#2: As flawed as it is, the American judicial system is one of the most admired in the world for affording it's citizen's the best defense. The flaw is that the best defense will cost money. There's never been a distinction in citizenry or citizenship, just that you have what it takes to get you the best defense.
LTE#3: Carter's "mistake" in the horse neglect/abuse case was that he got caught. Shame on Judge Hinnant.
Well slap me around and call me Susan. I actually agree with Pat Robertson on something.
ReplyDeleteJust what we need-a bunch of potheads driving around in cars killing people. We've already got drunks doing enough of the same thing.
DeleteThe potheads are already driving around.
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DeleteHey Susan, that makes two of us. Maybe Pat has been smoking happy weed all these years...could explain some of his weird pronouncements regarding weather events.
ReplyDeleteI see Pat has found favor somewhere. If you visit his tv studio, you might hear the new theme music: "One toke over the line sweet Jesus, one toke over the line".
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not, Lawrence Welk actually had his band do that song on his show. He called it a "sweet spiritual".
DeleteWas he really that square, or could he have been a secret toker too?
I didn't know that! I'm betting the list of secret tokers would dumbfound most people.For all we know, there may be a water pipe in many closets. The Lennon Sisters always smiled and looked placid each week....mind you I was always TOLD this....
DeleteWell: "A one anna toke anna three . . ."
Delete"Well" should have been "Welk".
DeleteIn a recent study 42% of Americans admitted smoking J at least once. I expect that many more lied. I know quite a few prominent local citizens who do.
DeleteRemember when Bill Clinton said that he "puffed" but didn't "inhale"? Guess what...
Here are a few more who either admitted to smoking weed or whom historical research has shown to be users:
Sir Richard Branson - airlines, record stores, cellphones
Rick Steves - travel industry
Micahel Phelps - winner of more Olymnpic gold medals than anyone else
Barack Obama - POTUS
Michael Bloomberg - business & politics
Ted Turner - largest private land owner in the US
Stephen King - 50 novels, 500 million copies sold
Arnold Schwarzenegger - actually seen puffing in the famous documentary "Pumping Iron"
George Washington - grew hemp...never knew a grower who wasn't a user
George W. and Laura Bush
Kareem Abdul Jabbar
Bill Murray
JFK
Steve Jobs
Bill Gates
Queen Victoria
Bing Crosby
Carl Sagan
Dizzie Gillespie and the other three creators of modern jazz, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk
Louis Armstrong
Princes Charles, Harry and William, and Princess Margaret
Jesse Ventura
Jimmy Dorsey
Joan of Arc
Lewis Carroll - Alice in Wonderland
Newt Gingrich
Pierre Trudeau - Canadian prime minister
William Shakespeare
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Sherlock preferred cocaine
And I wouldn't doubt the Lennon Sisters...as WW points out, they did smile and look placid week after week.
John Wayne said that he tried it once and it "didn't do anything for him". Not surprising since he was the Hollywood town drunk. You can drink along with Miss Mary, but you've got to give her a fighting chance.
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ReplyDeleteGood afternoon folks!
ReplyDeleteLTE 1: Robertson makes a sane comment? Next thing you know Lehigh will beat dook. Oh, wait...Aside from the savings, drug legalization may also help end the virtual civil war going on in Mexico.
LTE 2: What Mr. Gormley is missing is an understanding of the Constitution. The framers were more concerned about an innocent person going to jail than a guilty person going free, therefore they put into place all sorts of protection for the accused. Having translators available is just a part of that protection. The residency status of the accused is irrelevant since the Constitution applies to everyone in the country regardless of status.
LTE 3: Heart breaking case. Not familiar enough with the sentencing guidelines to comment on the sentence.
Spent a couple of days at Lehigh once. The campus looks a lot like Duke. It's in Bethlehem, PA, from whence came the Moravians who founded W-S.
DeleteObamacare: Opening remarks before the Supreme Court
ReplyDeleteOn one side of the debate are the White House, Cabinet officials, the Obama re-election campaign and dozens of liberal groups holding events across the country every day this week. And when the court sessions begin March 26, activists will open a media operations center next door at a United Methodist church. -USA Today
___________
Interesting where the 'activists' are meeting, don't you think?
When the Bishops Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury began spreading the word of John Wesley in America in the late 18th century, the message that they carried was a radical one. Since they had no churches, their meetings were held outdoors, often in "brush arbors".
ReplyDeleteLocal meetings, held mostly in the Advance area, alarmed the Moravian leaders in Salem, because many Moravian youths found the meetings to be exciting. Despite the Moravian concern, a Wesleyan church and school were founded sometime after 1780 near the Yadkin River.
In the early to mid 19th century, the Methodist Episcopal church split into northern and southern factions over slavery. They did not rejoin until the 20th century. The best local example is Centenary United Methodist Church in downtown W-S, founded in the 1920s.
Since then, as opposed to others, particularly Baptist and some Presbyterian denominations, the Methodist churches have become the most mainstream of christian sects. So it is fitting that a Methodist church becomes the gathering place for concerned citizens.
Francis Asbury was a particularly brilliant and observant man, who also had a keen sense of humor. His journals and letters have been widely published and are worth a purchase and a read.
Oh, and the great quarterback Fran Tarkenton, a preacher's son, was named for Bishop Asbury...Francis Asbury Tarkenton. The several books by and about him might be worth a look as well.