Biden says legalization of pot ‘a mistake’

Only days after televangelist Pat Robertson came out in favor of legalizing marijuana — and then backpedaled from that statement — Vice President Joe Biden has spoken out against legalizing the drug.

Here’s what Biden told ABC News:

“There’s a difference between sending (someone) to jail for a few ounces and legalizing it. The punishment should fit the crime. But I think legalization is a mistake. I still believe it’s a gateway drug. I’ve spent a lot of my life as chairman of the Judiciary Committee dealing with this. I think it would be a mistake to legalize.”

And here is what Pat Robertson had to say last week:

“We’re locking up people that have taken a couple puffs of marijuana and next thing you know they’ve got 10 years with mandatory sentences,” Robertson continued. “These judges just say, they throw up their hands and say nothing we can do with these mandatory sentences. We’ve got to take a look at what we’re considering crimes and that’s one of ‘em.

“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.”

While this may seem odd to some, Biden has long been one of Washington’s most zealous drug warriors. He was the one who first advocated for a “drug czar” in the early 1980s and was the author of the federal law that allows the government to seize your property on the premise that it was somehow involved with drug trafficking — even if they never charge you, much less convict you, of a crime.