Chances are not too many readers here look to Pat Robertson for legal/political guidance.  While understandable, that puts us squarely in the minority.  The fact is that there is a big world out there with a lot of otherwise very nice folks who don’t see things the way we do.  We can wrap ourselves in righteousness for being more thoughtful and knowledgeable then the “masses,” but it’s a false comfort.  Majority matters.

From The Raw Story, the word is out that Pat Robertson supports the decriminalization of marijuana.

Count this among the 10 things nobody ever expected to see in their lifetimes: 700 Club founder Pat Robertson, one of the cornerstone figures of America’s Christian right movement, has come out in favor of legalizing marijuana.

Calling it getting “smart” on crime, Robertson aired a clip on a recent episode of his 700 Club television show that advocated the viewpoint of drug law reformers who run prison outreach ministries.

I’m constrained to admit that I have never watched the 700 Club.  Chances aren’t good that I will start now.  But I still recognize the significance of Robertson’s support.  There are a lot of people who do watch, far more than will read any word I write.  This is big.

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.”

For decades, politicians and pundits, religious leaders and regular Joes, said that it was a good thing.  A necessary thing.  The sort of thing we must do if we are to maintain our American way of life.  And now it’s not a good thing.  That’s great.

Robertson has adopted the language we’ve been using for quite a while, promoting “smart” in place of “tough.”  For those of us who credit Orwell, such rhetorical shifts open critical doors to rational voices.  No longer is the knee-jerk reaction that anyone who uses drugs, no matter what type or quantity, so worthless and disposable a human that we should throw them away.

Like Robertson, and unlike many of my contemporaries, it has never been my belief that pot is a benign substance.  It’s an intoxicant, and a fairly potent one at that.  Smoke a blunt and I don’t want you behind the wheel of a car.  It’s never been the same social lubricant as a glass of wine.  Others disagree with me, and I can accept that my view may not conform with others who might expect a more liberal perspective.

But we do share the belief that smoking pot shouldn’t land a kid in prison. 

Years ago, a judge who sat in Part N (“N” for narcotics) in Manhattan told me that she won’t sentence a pot defendant to probation.  My lawyerly reaction was to argue that her stance of rejecting probation, that being within the realm of sentences the legislature deemed proper for a person who was convicted of smoking pot, exceeded her authority.  It wasn’t up to a judge to decide that the low end of available sentences should never be imposed.  She was unpersuaded.  She categorically refused to sentence a marijuana defendant to probation.

The depth of the belief that marijuana is a drug that demands imprisonment is something that advocates for decriminalization simply cannot comprehend.  Whether because of the gateway argument or Puritanical prissiness, a large swathe of society believed that anyone who used marijuana was very much a criminal, and very much deserved a long term of imprisonment.  This inability to accept the fact that this was an article of faith in much of society made it difficult to address. 

The arguments haven’t changed.  The rhetoric is the same.  The difference is that Pat Robertson is a person who, merely by his word, will change blind adherence to this article of faith.  His say so means more than any argument.

Raw Story credits the new conservative blog, Right on Crime, and gives a  shout out to LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, for providing the impetus to opening Pat Robertson’s mind about the danger and damage of decades of tough on crime policies. 

While the notion of religious leaders dictating political positions to their adherents remains deeply troubling, as it just as easily works against sound policy even though this time it happens to conform with policy with which we agree, the reality is that we will never be able to spread the word more broadly or persuasively to a vast array of people who would never credit our thoughts.  We need a Pat Robertson to sign on.

It’s only one issue.  It has not yet broadened to an acceptance of rational criminal policy based upon experience and reason rather than blind rage and fear.  But given how hard the fight has been, and how little progress has been made, having the word spread by Pat Robertson is huge.  Let us give thanks.