Television evangelist Pat Robertson took to the airwaves of "The 700 Club" last week to condemn arrests for marijuana possession, as reported earlier on the blog for the organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

"I became sort of a hero of the hippie culture, I guess, when I said I think we ought to decriminalize the possession of marijuana," Robertson said, according to Reason magazine. "I just think it's shocking how many of these young people wind up in prison and they get turned into hardcore criminals because they had a possession of a very small amount of controlled substance. The whole thing is crazy. We've said, 'we're conservative, we're tough on crime.' That's baloney. It's costing us billions and billions of dollars."

Robertson blamed left-wing lawmakers for the harsh sanctions.

"What is it we're doing that is different?" he said. "What we're doing is turning a bunch of liberals loose writing laws -- there's this punitive spirit, the always want to punish people. It's time for change! More and more prisons, more and more crime. It's just shocking, especially this business about drug offenses. It's time we stop locking up people for possession of marijuana. We just can't do it anymore...You don't lock 'em up for booze unless they kill somebody on the highway."

Robertson also recently said on "The 700 Club" that victims of tornadoes shouldn't have built houses in tornado-prone areas, and were at fault for not praying harder.

"If enough people were praying [God] would’ve intervened, you could pray, Jesus stilled the storm, you can still storms,” Robertson said on the show.

Here's a look at some of Robertson's other controversial statements:

PHOTO GALLERY The Wisdom of Pat Robertson