Ah Republicans, they say one thing and do the other. Case in point, Senator Norm Coleman. Norm has been a strong defender of the strict marijuana laws on the Federal books, echoing his party's cries to throw the key away for drug offenders. Unfortunately for the Senator, his old friend from college wrote him an open letter on celebstoner.com chastising him for his policy reversal and reminding him that he loved to get high.
From Celebstoner:
Dear Mr. Coleman,
My friend Norman.
Years ago, in a lifetime far away, you did not oppose the legalization of marijuana. Years ago, in our dorm rooms at Hofstra University, you, me, Billy, your future brother-in-law, Ivan, Jonathan, Peter, Janet, Nancy and a wealth of other students smoked dope.
Sure, we had to tape the doors shut, burn incense and open the windows, but we got high, and yet we grew up okay, without the help of the Office of National Drug Control Policy's advice.
We grew up to become lawyers. Our other friends, as you go down the list, are doctors, professors, parents, political consultants and professionals. No one ever got cancer from smoking pot or diabetes from using a joint. And the days of our youth we look back fondly upon as years where we stood up, were counted and made a difference, from Earth Day in 1970 to helping bring down a president and end a war in Southeast Asia a few years later.
We smoked pot when we took over Weller Hall to protest administrative abuses of students' rights. You smoked pot as you stood on the roof of the University Senate protesting faculty exclusivity. As the President of the Student Senate in 1969, you condemned the raid by Nassau County police on our dormitories, busting scores of students for pot possession.
Well well Mr. Coleman. You turned into the people that you desipised the most from the time of your youth. The effects of marijuana are debatable but the penalties for using it should not. People that do have problems with marijuana should be given treatment, not jail time. As a former stoner, you should have sympathy for those that get high today as you once did (or still do??) at Hofstra.
If you now believe in such harsh punishment for using pot, shouldn't you be serving time in prison as well? If it is so pervasively destructive to anyone who uses it, how did you make it to law school, being Mayor of Minneapolis and Senator from Minnesota? Perhaps you can answer some of these questions in the upcoming battle for your seat next year.
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