Aside from discussing the fascist nature of Donald Trump’s candidacy and potential presidency, Real Time host Bill Maher spent a great deal of the program interviewing outgoing President Barack Obama. Maher treated his panelists and audience to snippets of the long-awaited interview, but the Real Time YouTube page uploaded the entire 37-minute exchange online for all to see. Taking half an hour out of your day to watch the whole thing is worth anyone’s time, for aside from Obama’s typical talking points, the two discussed many subjects near and dear to Maher’s heart — especially drugs.
“Let me ask you a question that I know people who watch our show are interested in, which is marijuana reform,” said Maher. “We’ve both made jokes about it, but it’s not funny to be people who get arrested — which is over half a million, I think, last year. You and I could both have had our lives ruined, not really by smoking it but by being arrested for it. I feel like you had a checklist… I was hoping ending the drug war would be on that list. It’s on the ballot now in nine states in a week, including California for recreational [use]. Isn’t it time the federal government caught up to progressive states?”
After a few laughs with Bill, Obama stated he’d “always believed that, to the extent society legitimately wants to guard against any kind of substance abuse, you treat is as a public health problem.” The president wouldn’t fully commit to discussing his pot smoking days, a la his memoir Dreams from My Father, but he did equate the matter to his old cigarette smoking habit. “There is this enormous public health effort to get kids not to pick up smoking.”
“That’s where I think we need to go with pot [and] alcohol,” Obama concluded. “I don’t think that legalization is a panacea, but I think that we’re going to have to have a more serious conversation about how we are treating marijuana and our drug laws generally. The good news is, after this referendum, to some degree it’s going to call the question.”
Marijuana notwithstanding, Maher and Obama also discussed the latter’s presidency in summation, the coming election, and many other topics. Check out the full video below.
(Via the Hollywood Reporter)
