Cenk: So, Penn, I think a lot of people who saw that rant thought, 'boy, what was he on?'
Penn: (Laughs) well, you know, it's always important to point out that I've never had a drink of alcohol or any recreational drug in my life. I didn't even hold marijuana up to my lips and not inhale. I'm totally clean and sober my whole life, but I just don't like paying money to put potheads in prison. And I also most importantly think that even if I disagree with Obama on many, many things, he is certainly qualified to be president. He is certainly competent to be president. And yet, under the very laws that he kind of chortles about, he would not be our president if he had been arrested for his marijuana and maybe a little blow when he was younger. And I just think that, maybe, you know, he doesn't make the laws, maybe there's political reasons to do this, but at least don't laugh about the number of people who are having their lives ruined. I mean, we have people of the quality of Obama and Steve Jobs and all these people who we're throwing into prison and ruining their lives for marijuana, which everybody laughs about and everybody in the world seems to have done except for me.
Cenk: Yeah, you know, you're a strange dude. You're a guy who doesn't do drugs who is really mad about marijuana not being legal and you're the only person in Vegas, certainly the only non-Mormon in Vegas, who doesn't drink or do pot. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? (Laughs)
So that leads to the question of, 'why this particular issue? Why are you so mad about this issue as opposed to others?
Penn: Oh, there's no particular reason except that the day before my podcast, I was driving home and I heard on a radio station them replaying him talking to Jimmy Fallon. And I know Jimmy Fallon, he's a friend, I love him. But just the idea that Obama can be so jovial, so hip and so with it. Even using words like, you know, 'weed.' And using that kind of terminology and just kind of laughing and being one of us--yeah, we all do drugs. I just thought about, if I were a parent whose child was doing time for marijuana, how could he laugh about that?
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