On his popular television show "Real Time With Bill Maher," comedian Bill Maher called for not only legalization of marijuana, but of Presidential pardons for the tens of thousands of Americans in jail for smoking pot.
Maher started off with a look at the growing list of politicians who have admitted to smoking marijuana, and he said their common reference to being young and stupid is not acceptable when others go to jail for the same offense.
"I think it is time to declare that the media ritual of asking presidential candidates if they ever smoked pot can be put to rest because the answer is always 'yes,' and nobody cares. Everyone from Bill Clinton to Newt Gingrich, Al Gore to Rick Santorum, John Kerry to Sarah Palin, they have all fessed up," he said.
Most politicians comment about their marijuana usage, says Maher, usually in some form of, "Hey, when I was young and stupid, I was young and stupid." … "Which is great," said Maher, "except that's not a defense that's really available to most of the 700,000 Americans who get arrested every year."
"Don't …Â all these guys … owe a debt to the 40,000 unlucky Americans currently in jail for the exact same crime?" he asked.
Maher suggested that President Obama should continue on his path of "reversing the stupidities of the past: healthcare, torture, gay marriage, immigration, Cuba … It's pot's turn," he said. "And not just legalization. Obama should acknowledge that putting people in jail for nonviolent drug offenses was a giant mistake in the first place, and then he should use the power of the presidential pardon and free them all."
View the video clip here.
