Who Cares if Norm Coleman Smoked Pot? Norm Kent Does
Monday, July 02, 2007 at 11:49 am
- 10 Comments
When Norm Coleman was in college, he smoked pot. If his former college roommate is to believed, he smoked a lot of it.
Angered by a letter from Coleman that expressed support for continued prohibition on marijuana, Norm Kent sent a letter back to Coleman and copied it to the website CelebStoner.com.
“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,” Kent said.
Kent detailed a number of alleged times Coleman smoked marijuana, including at a number of protests. And he blasted Coleman for being hypocritical for changing his tune now.
“How about admitting that if the Rockefeller drug laws were applied to Norman Bruce Coleman on Long Island in 1968, or to me, or to our friends, and fellow students, you, I and others we knew and loved might just be getting out of jail now?” asked Kent. “How about recognizing that for too long too many have been wrongly arrested, unjustly prosecuted and illegally incarcerated for unconscionable periods of time?”
Kent’s missive to his former friend is interesting for its lack of uniqueness. Many of our leaders dabbled in pot as college students, and many more had friends who did. And yet these people survived to live productive lives, instead of getting hooked on drugs.
I’ve never smoked pot. Indeed, aside from the times I drank when I was underage, I’ve never ingested any illegal drugs. But I have friends who smoked pot in college, friends who smoked pot around me. And they’ve grown up to be successful and productive members of society. Most of them have quit smoking pot, but a few still do once in a while, and somehow they manage to survive from day to day.
There are drugs out there that need to be outlawed. Heroin and methamphetamines and cocaine are tremendously addictive and extraordinarily bad for people, and there’s no reason for them to be made legal anytime soon. But the message about these drugs’ dangers is blunted by the government’s continued war on pot, whether it be in fighting recreational users or in going after those using marijuana to treat chronic illness.
Let’s be honest, folks: Marijuana is not a major health hazard. Oh, it’s not particularly good for you, but neither is alcohol or tobacco or French silk pie. But it’s arguably no worse for you than alcohol; indeed, it’s arguably better.
And yet we still as a society make the penalty for using pot draconian. If Norm Coleman had been busted for possession at age 19, he may have avoided jail time — but he would have lost his financial aid, a casualty of our continued war on drugs, which makes any conviction on drug charges an automatic disqualifier. More than a few students today are facing the reality that they can’t go to college anymore because they did the exact same thing Coleman did at their age. Which future senator are we disqualifying?
As a society, we need a good reason to make something illegal. If pot was meth, making people paranoid and self-destructive and dangerous, then that would be a good reason. But pot is more like alcohol: a mild drug that people use for personal enjoyment. If Norm Coleman’s former roommate is to be believed, Coleman did just that many times, and he grew up to be a U.S. senator. Al Gore used pot liberally, and grew up to be vice president.
I don’t care if these men, or dozens of others of our leaders, smoked dope. Indeed, with Norm active in the 60′s counterculture, I would only have been surprised if he’d claimed not to have done so. What I do care about is that these people, who have actually used these drugs and know their effects, choose to continue arguing that these drugs are uniformly bad. If Coleman wishes to expound on why pot was a serious negative in his life, he should do so. But if it wasn’t a negative in his life, he should have the guts to admit it and the guts to start working to focus our drug laws on the real threats to our society.
10 Comments
Comment posted July 2, 2007 @ 2:54 pm
Interesting Argument Very interesting argument you offer.
However, I would like to offer that exact argument back as the reason our current drug laws are not strict enough.
If smoking pot gives us representatives such as Mr. Coleman and Mr. Gore, we should lock them all up and throw away the key.
Comment posted July 3, 2007 @ 1:43 am
The Drug War has failed I agree with a lot of what you say, and am happy that you’ve taken on this issue from the angle that Norm’s past pot use is only an issue because of Senator Coleman’s current position. But I have to take issue with this statement, “Heroin and methamphetamines and cocaine are tremendously addictive and extraordinarily bad for people, and there’s no reason for them to be made legal anytime soon.”
I think there is a very good reason for those drugs to be made legal soon – keeping them entirely illegal has caused far too much harm. Personally I believe in government regulation, and think that drugs should be officially discouraged. And I don’t have all the answers. But for the hardest of drugs I could envision a better solution being a quasi-illegal environment where they are so hard to get that we still have to wage a battle against a street-level market diverting legal supplies, but where the production has been taken out of the hands of cartels and regulated and taxed.
The challenge is finding a drug policy that eliminates the criminal cash cow while also diminishing use. However we get to that point, I am convinced that a first step has to be acknowledging that prohibition is a failed policy.
Comment posted July 4, 2007 @ 4:19 pm
I don’t care…………… I don’t understand why people make a big deal out of what celebraties did in their youth. Pot smoking came after my generation but it seems that nearly everyone I know of my kids’ generation at least knows someone, or many, who did smoke the wicked weed.
Bilary smoked it. He became president.
Algore smoked it. He became vice president.
Normy smoked it. He became a senator.
They all served their country…as did Keith, who spent years in Nam jumping out of planes to fight Viet Cong “insurgents”, Sam, who went into Granada and for 10 fought to free some med students, help nationals get food..and find military uniforms, weapons, plans etc. to attack the US of A. Then there’s Nance, who graduated Summa Cum Laude after entering college after her kids had finished! They are all adults with integrity now. “Good Grief!”, said Minnesota’s Charlie Brown. Didn’t we ALL do stupid things in our youth?
Did their pot smoking affect me? No. Did they all help our country? I believe yes…..and I’m a Conservative!
Comment posted July 5, 2007 @ 2:41 pm
Time Bomb Tactics The fact of the matter is Pot, Weed, Marijuana what ever you want to call it, its illegal in the united states then when they were smoking it in college and now when im smoking it in college. So i guess were criminals, real menaces to society even though Norm became a productive member of society a war veteran and a community role model. Nevermind all that because were going to get back to the point we need to legalize weed. It has medical purposes and honestly it grows in the ground its natural. Man made beer god made weed who are you going to trust. SOW THE SEEDS OF LIBERTY LEGALIZE MARIJUANA
Comment posted July 2, 2007 @ 9:54 am
Interesting Argument Very interesting argument you offer.
However, I would like to offer that exact argument back as the reason our current drug laws are not strict enough.
If smoking pot gives us representatives such as Mr. Coleman and Mr. Gore, we should lock them all up and throw away the key.
Comment posted July 2, 2007 @ 8:43 pm
The Drug War has failed I agree with a lot of what you say, and am happy that you've taken on this issue from the angle that Norm's past pot use is only an issue because of Senator Coleman's current position. But I have to take issue with this statement, “Heroin and methamphetamines and cocaine are tremendously addictive and extraordinarily bad for people, and there's no reason for them to be made legal anytime soon.”
I think there is a very good reason for those drugs to be made legal soon – keeping them entirely illegal has caused far too much harm. Personally I believe in government regulation, and think that drugs should be officially discouraged. And I don't have all the answers. But for the hardest of drugs I could envision a better solution being a quasi-illegal environment where they are so hard to get that we still have to wage a battle against a street-level market diverting legal supplies, but where the production has been taken out of the hands of cartels and regulated and taxed.
The challenge is finding a drug policy that eliminates the criminal cash cow while also diminishing use. However we get to that point, I am convinced that a first step has to be acknowledging that prohibition is a failed policy.
Comment posted July 4, 2007 @ 11:19 am
I don't care…………… I don't understand why people make a big deal out of what celebraties did in their youth. Pot smoking came after my generation but it seems that nearly everyone I know of my kids' generation at least knows someone, or many, who did smoke the wicked weed.
Bilary smoked it. He became president.
Algore smoked it. He became vice president.
Normy smoked it. He became a senator.
They all served their country…as did Keith, who spent years in Nam jumping out of planes to fight Viet Cong “insurgents”, Sam, who went into Granada and for 10 fought to free some med students, help nationals get food..and find military uniforms, weapons, plans etc. to attack the US of A. Then there's Nance, who graduated Summa Cum Laude after entering college after her kids had finished! They are all adults with integrity now. “Good Grief!”, said Minnesota's Charlie Brown. Didn't we ALL do stupid things in our youth?
Did their pot smoking affect me? No. Did they all help our country? I believe yes…..and I'm a Conservative!
Comment posted July 5, 2007 @ 9:41 am
Time Bomb Tactics The fact of the matter is Pot, Weed, Marijuana what ever you want to call it, its illegal in the united states then when they were smoking it in college and now when im smoking it in college. So i guess were criminals, real menaces to society even though Norm became a productive member of society a war veteran and a community role model. Nevermind all that because were going to get back to the point we need to legalize weed. It has medical purposes and honestly it grows in the ground its natural. Man made beer god made weed who are you going to trust. SOW THE SEEDS OF LIBERTY LEGALIZE MARIJUANA
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