April 13, 2016 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
05:20
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| We're gonna be talking about marijuana this week. | ||
| I'll give you guys just a sec to roll a joint, pack a bowl, or put fresh water in the bong. | ||
| Of course, those are just a couple of the old-school ways of getting stoned. | ||
| These days, it also includes vaping, waxes, edibles, and oils. | ||
| I should tell you I've tried all of them a couple times each to cure this darn glaucoma I diagnosed myself with back in high school. | ||
| I still haven't been cured, but there is always hope. | ||
| Before we get into a big discussion about marijuana, meaning legalization, health benefits, recreational use, and more, It's only fair if I tell you guys a bit about my history with weed. | ||
| After smoking my first joint during sophomore year of college, for a couple years I was probably what most would consider a pothead. | ||
| I'd get stoned and watch TV, write, or go grocery shopping, gathering all the best snacks I could get a hold of. | ||
| I should note, I never got into a fight, robbed a bank, or murdered anyone while smoking weed. | ||
| After college I smoke now and again, usually while just hanging out with friends. | ||
| Despite the marijuana raging through our systems, we also seem to never get into a fight, rob a bank, or murder anyone. | ||
| Since moving to LA, where medicinal marijuana is legal, at least on the state level, I got my med card and I smoke every couple weeks. | ||
| Usually I enjoy a nice bowl at the end of a long day when I just want to veg out. | ||
| And watch Seinfeld or The Simpsons. | ||
| And to this day, I haven't gotten into a fight, robbed a bank, or murdered anyone while smoking weed. | ||
| When it comes to marijuana, I'm a libertarian through and through. | ||
| What I do with my own body, in my own house, is nobody else's business, much less the government's. | ||
| As long as I'm not doing harm to another person, then I have the right to do as I wish as a citizen. | ||
| This is a place where libertarianism makes absolute sense to me. | ||
| We don't even have to get into the health benefits. | ||
| Or the dangers of other currently legal drugs. | ||
| The liberal argument for weed is pretty good too, which basically is it's not doing any real damage, so you should be able to smoke it, plus we're putting too many people in jail for partaking in a drug that generally doesn't lead to criminal behavior. | ||
| This is a case where libertarians and classic liberals take on something really lines up. | ||
| On the other hand, conservatives in the U.S. | ||
| have generally been against marijuana. | ||
| They call it a gateway drug, which is pretty much like calling Gerbers a gateway food. | ||
| Conservatives have scared people into thinking that marijuana will make you a criminal or a degenerate, and they don't mind wasting your taxpayer money locking up people for a personal choice that they do with their own bodies. | ||
| There are some conservatives who even now, with all we know about the multiple benefits of marijuana, are still against legalizing even at a medicinal level. | ||
| Ironically, it's conservatives who also preach about small government, yet they seem to want to regulate what you do in the privacy of your own home, while at the same time wasting taxpayer dollars, which they say they want to save, on trumped up criminal charges. | ||
| Of course, none of these examples are perfect, which is why Rand Paul, a libertarian, still hasn't fully come around on the marijuana issue, and Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, hasn't either. | ||
| Meanwhile, the Republican candidates are all against it in one form or another, despite the fact that the only tolerable way to watch a Republican debate is while stoned. | ||
| The one candidate who I do think understands the issue is Bernie Sanders, who wants to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level. | ||
| Ironically in this instance, it's the big government guy who is making the government smaller by getting them out of your private life and not putting you in jail for having a good time. | ||
| If you are sick with cancer or with Parkinson's, why should the government or any other human being be able to stop you from doing anything that would alleviate your pain and suffering? | ||
| If you get caught with marijuana, should you have your life ruined by being thrown in a federal jail? | ||
| If you get really high and watch The Wizard of Oz with Dark Side of the Moon playing in the background, does it really sync up? | ||
| These are just some of the important questions that talking about weed brings up. | ||
| My guest this week is Angel Teager. | ||
| Angel is part of the Los Angeles Medical Cannabis Task Force and owns her own edibles company, Ruby Doobie. | ||
| She got involved with marijuana after Western medicine failed to help her with her debilitating migraines. | ||
| Angel now speaks about the medicinal benefits of marijuana, the ongoing quest for legalization, and removing the stigma attached to the conversation. | ||
| Some of you have probably heard me tell the story of how, in 1997, I went to see the movie Air Force One after eating some pot brownies with a couple friends. | ||
| The movie was sold out, so we walked into another movie called Contact, which I had never heard of. | ||
| Remember that incredibly mind-blowing extended panorama of the universe that opens the movie? | ||
| Well, it may sound corny, but my world actually felt bigger after seeing that movie stoned. | ||
| I ended up reading many of the books by Carl Sagan, who is the author of Contact and brilliant scientist, after seeing that movie. | ||
| That stoned moment opened up something in me that got me interested in many of the ideas that I talk about today. | ||
| Maybe it would have happened without the weed, but it sure didn't hurt. | ||
| That also reminds me, I'd love to tell you about the week I spent in the Red Light District in Amsterdam a couple years ago. |
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