Montel Williams blasts ad opposing medical use of marijuana

Television personality Montel Williams speaks at the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock on Oct. 18, 2012. / AP

An outspoken medical marijuana proponent, talk-show host Montel Williams lashed out this week at an Arkansas ad against a ballot proposal, calling it "racist."

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Montel Williams gets emotional over medical marijuana

According to CBS affiliate KHTV in Little Rock, Williams told a crowd in the Arkansas capital Thursday that the 30-second spot opposing a ballot initiative that would legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes is "the most egregiously false, racist statement you've ever seen in your life."

In the ad, paid for by the Family Council Action Committee, a black man is shown dealing drugs as the narrator talks about "dope dealers" taking advantage of the measure.

Jerry Cox of the Family Council told the TV station the ad is accurate and said drug dealers know more than anyone else about marijuana.

The ballot measure, if approved, would make the Arkansas first southern state to legalize medical marijuana. It is opposed by the Arkansas Pharmacists Association. The state's Sheriffs' Association also said it plans to oppose the measure.

Williams, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, admitted the issue is a personal one. "For me, cannabis became a choice that my doctor and I had to make," he said. He has been campaigning for the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes for more than a decade.

[csimons333]

Here is a patient talking with the head of the organization that created the ad in question. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm0KCZIgK-s

[malcolm-kyle]

During alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, all profits went to enrich thugs and criminals. Young men died every day on inner-city streets while battling over turf. A fortune was wasted on enforcement that could have gone on treatment. On top of the budget-busting prosecution and incarceration costs, billions in taxes were lost. Finally the economy collapsed. Sound familiar?

If you support prohibition then you've helped trigger the worst crime wave in history and raised gang warfare to a level not seen since the days of alcohol bootlegging.

If you support prohibition you've a helped create a black market with massive incentives to hook both adults and children alike.

If you support prohibition you've helped put previously unknown and contaminated drugs on the streets, and helped to make these dangerous substances available in schools and prisons.

If you support prohibition you've helped create a prison-for-profit synergy with drug lords and terrorists.

If you support prohibition you've helped escalate the number of people on welfare who can't find employment due to their felony status.

If you support prohibition you're responsible for the horrific racial disparities which have bred generations of incarcerated and disenfranchised Afro Americans.

If you support prohibition you've helped evolve local gangs into transnational enterprises, gifted them intricate power structures that reach into every corner of society, helped them gain control of vast swaths of territory, and put significant social and military resources at their disposal.

Prohibition is nothing less than a grotesque dystopian nightmare. If you support it, you must be either ignorant, stupid, brainwashed, corrupt, or criminally insane.

[kevin_hunt]

Montel is right. Marijuana laws were enacted in 1937 to punish minorities. When these laws were found unconstitutional in 1969, Nixon put marijuana in schedule I of the CSA of 1970 to punish minorities:

Quoting Richard Nixon: "I see another thing in the news summary this morning about it. That's a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob, what is the matter with them? I suppose it's because most of them are psychiatrists."

"You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this all while not appearing to."