Bishop Ron Allen is seriously one of the best things to ever happen to the marijuana legalization debate. In all my years of marijuana reform advocacy, I've never seen an opponent so unhinged, so incoherent and intoxicated by his own idiocy. Just watch this FOX News debate with MPP [8]'s Steve Fox and see if you can figure out what the hell Bishop Allen is trying to say:
Despite being rather familiar with the common arguments and rhetoric on both sides of the marijuana debate, I had to watch Allen's comments twice before I could confidently translate this as a tortured attempt to refute the argument that marijuana laws exacerbate racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
Honestly, it requires deep concentration to understand what on earth this guy is talking about, and I can only imagine how this comes across to folks who haven't had much exposure to the issue. I'm begging to wonder if it betrays a political bias in our favor on the part of FOX News that they're putting Allen on the air. At the very least, it's certainly a positive sign that the intellectual wing of the prohibitionist movement has already run for the hills and left the microphone up for grabs.
Bonus points for calling out LEAP [9] by name and accusing them of "fear-mongering." How ironic that a group of police officers who offer solutions to the crime and violence of the drug trade are accused of trying to scare everyone. Rather obviously, their message is one of hope for better policies and a brighter future. It is those who oppose legalization that rely on tactics of desperate intimidation. Doubt and fear are the essential threads that bind together every argument ever voiced in defense of marijuana prohibition. It should come as no surprise therefore that the polls tip further in our favor each time the opposition presents its case to the public.
