Joe Biden boasted to black radio host Charlemagne tha’ God on Friday that “I know a lot of weed smokers” during a bizarre and controversial interview.
During a discussion about marijuana decriminalization, Biden suggested replacing jail time for all drug offences with mandatory rehab instead:
The plan I have is my manifesto for black American, and particularly the portion of it that relates to how, in fact, we’re gonna deal with the prison system. If you are in prison, if you are convicted of a crime — No one should be going to jail for drug crime. Period. Nobody. Nobody. No matter what the crime, particularly marijuana which makes no sense for people to go to jail. They should be just wiped out completely, and the reason is that, what, if anything, for those crimes that are actually continue to be crimes, schedule crimes, as marijuana shouldn’t be anymore, what is happening is you shouldn’t go to prison. You should go to a mandatory rehabilitation. It costs less to put people in a drug rehabilitation program than it does in jail. And you have a chance. You’ve got to give people a chance! [emphasis added]
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Charlamagne asked Biden about the difference between legalizing cannabis and merely decriminalizing its use. Biden responded that lawmakers need to conduct more studies exploring the long term affects of marijuana on the brain.
“We should wait until the studies are done, and I think science matters,” Biden cautioned.
Charlemagne argued that America already had “decades” of data from the drug’s usage across the country.
“I think we got decades and decades of studies from actual weed smokers though,” he said.
“Yeah we do,” Biden grinned. “I know a lot of weed smokers.”