This report is sure to be a liberal crowd-pleaser. This is the kind of story leftists love. The report is about three ex-cops who have been captured on film smoking marijuana for the first time in decades. [1] [3] The video was done by the same team, The Cut, which created the hit viral video, “Grandmas Smoke Weed for the First Time.” [1] This video teaser was released last week in anticipation of the release of the full-length video on the annual stoner’s holiday of 4/20. The only question that remains, is will this video break the Internet? The officers’ honesty during this experiment is quite revealing. [1] Why is this video so spectacular? Perhaps because we get to watch the very men charged with upholding antiquated prohibition of marijuana laws smoke their brains out. As these cops pass around the bong, which IMHO is an extremely aggressive way to smoke if you don’t have a tolerance, you just get the sense that those old world taboos of weed are crumbling down. If the very men who spent their careers upholding the laws are embracing the legalization of marijuana, what the hell are the opposition still griping about? [3]
Before they smoked, the ex-police officers were given a sobriety test. All the men admitted to smoking before, but said they hadn’t done it in several years. Even though it had been a while, the former officers picked it up quickly. After five minutes, they were asked if they had ever arrested anyone for marijuana-related charges. And while none recalled arresting anyone for a marijuana crime during their law enforcement career, one did remember seizing “a lot of pot” from people. [4] They were then asked if they believed marijuana was a gateway drug. One of the men answered that he believed it could be, while another debunked his colleague’s answer. “If you look at it, everyone who is a heroin addict started off drinking milk,” the ex-cop says. “I mean that’s the argument about marijuana and I’m not sure that’s true.” [4] After 25 minutes they were definitely feeling high. They then retook the sobriety test and didn’t fare so well. After 45 minutes (when they were done with the initial bong rips), the officers begin contemplating the war on drugs, discussing its effects. They were asked if marijuana should be legalized, and they gave some logical reasons why it should be. He said: “I think it should be legal, I think it should be more widely available for medical reasons,” one of the men says. “It’s like the last piece of prohibition.” [4] One of the men argues that a good reason to legalize marijuana is that it takes the guesswork out of the product a person is buying. “I mean some of the stuff you can get on the street now, you don’t know what is going to happen to you,” the man says. “[With legalization], you’ve got a quality product and you know what it is, where it came from and what it’s going to do to you.” [4] After 60 minutes passed, they were they told that marijuana gets some people horny and were asked if they were horny… they responded hilariously. [2] Not long after, they spark up another one and take a few more bong rips. [1] When asked if they would smoke again, the answers were universally “Yes.” [2] One thing is for certain, the people of the US (even the cops) are fed up with seeing individuals kidnapped, locked in cages, and killed over this plant. One of the officer said at one point, talking about the lunacy of arresting kid for smoking marijuana: “it costs more to put somebody in prison [for drugs] — not jail, but prison — than it costs to send them to Harvard.” [4]
Marijuana enthusiasts have a lot to celebrate this 4/20. Attitudes are changing rapidly on marijuana policy in the U.S. Several recent polls show that a majority of Americans across party lines continue to support legalization nationally. [4] Recreational marijuana is now legal in four states and the District of Columbia. Twenty-three states have legalized marijuana for medical purposes, and 19 states have decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use. Criminal marijuana charges have dramatically dropped in states that have ended prohibitions of the substance. [4] While marijuana remains banned at the federal level, a growing number of lawmakers are seeking broad reforms to federal policy surrounding the plant. They continue to introduce legislation that could significantly roll back drug war policies, signaling that the biggest 420 celebration is still to come. [4]
