Maher and guests (Salman Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens and Mos Def) had an honest conversation about marijuana, politics and prohibition.   Compare this honesty to Obama’s recent concocted statement, which was carefully designed to keep him safe from Republican character attacks.  This topic of the legalization of marijuana needs more honest discussion, or else we will continue tossing 800,000 victimless “criminals” into the justice system every year.   I’m not promoting the use of marijuana or any other mind-altering drug; I would prefer that everyone stay sober and naturally high on life.  The current system is insanity, however, and I don’t see any hope for the honest public conversations we need to have.

On a related note, Huffpo reports that the violent big-time sellers of illegal drugs are thrilled to hear that we are going to continue our violence-inducing and generally counter-productive  “drug war”:

Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, reported head of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, ranked 701st on Forbes’ yearly report of the wealthiest men alive, and worth an estimated $1 billion, today officially thanked United States politicians for making sure that drugs remain illegal. According to one of his closest confidants, he said, “I couldn’t have gotten so stinking rich without George Bush, George Bush Jr., Ronald Reagan, even El Presidente Obama, none of them have the cajones to stand up to all the big money that wants to keep this stuff illegal. From the bottom of my heart, I want to say, Gracias amigos, I owe my whole empire to you.”