Won't it be too hard for Congress to decriminalise weed?
Well, Connecticut just became the 17th state to legalise or decriminalise marijuana (5). It's coming. It has to, because economically we need the money – why give it to criminals? Most people realise it's not a deadly drug like cocaine or cigarettes. Cigarettes killed my mother, my dad, half my family, so don't tell me about health when you're talking about legalising marijuana because it's not dangerous healthwise. I'm the canary in the mine, and I'm still healthy. Had I stayed with alcohol I would have been dead or in prison or somewhere today. (6)
Do you think the policy-makers in Washington might one day realise the war on drugs has been lost?
I do know, again, there's a lot of money in prisons and there's a lot of money in lawyers, and down on the borders there's a lot of money in guns that come back and forth because of the drug laws. If we made everything legal we would save a whole lotta money, a whole lotta lives. If we taxed and regulated the drugs the way they do in other parts of the world, we would be far better off, I think.
Have you been disappointed with the Obama administration?
When he was running for office and he had a lot of aspirations, I had a few doubts about whether he was going to be able to do it or not. I don't think the president has as much power as we think he does, and he can say what he wants to while he's running for office, but once he gets in there, there are four or five guys who take him into a small room, sit him round a small table and say: "Look, cowboy, here's the way it is." I don't believe he can do everything he said he would.
