I am a big supporter of the legalization of marijuana.  I think it should be taxed and regulated in the same way that we tax and regulate tobacco and alcohol.  Right now, you can buy any drug in any city in America on the black market.  It’s obvious that the Drug War has failed.  Its lone accomplishment seems to have been making the cartels rich.  There are hard drugs that we should work to keep off the streets, but marijuana isn’t one of them.  Keeping marijuana illegal carries too big of a cost.  Our prisons are full, and resources that could be used elsewhere are being wasted on a drug that can’t kill you.  People across the country are incarcerated for being pot smokers and come out as hardened ex-convicts.

Now, I’m sure it’s not shocking to anyone that I feel this way, but I got the surprise of my life on Wednesday when I heard that Pat Robertson agrees with me.  Granted, we have very different thoughts on how things got this bad, but we agree on the solution.

Legalizing marijuana would also lift the DEA’s ban on industrial hemp production, the effect of which could revolutionize American energy policy and revitalize the economy.  Hemp is the world’s strongest natural fiber and produces an oil that can replace petroleum in a wide variety of applications.  The first Model-T relied heavily on hemp.  Its panels were made from a hemp-derived plastic that was said to be 10 times stronger than their steel equivalent.  Hemp works as  fuel, too.  Interestingly enough, Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the diesel engine, designed his engine to run on vegetable and seed oils like hemp, not the petroleum based “diesel” we buy today.  If refined to produce methanol, it produces ten times more than corn.

Pat Robertson speaks out for marijuana legalization – CNN.com Blogs

Watch a clip that feels like something out of the Twilight Zone after the break.