Colbert Roasts Patrick Kennedy

Patrick Kennedy was the guest on February 10th’s Colbert Report. I still can’t tell if Kennedy is a good-intentioned (albeit misguided) person who is doing something he genuinely thinks is a good idea or if he is just being a typical self-centered politician who needed a cause to champion in order to maintain relevancy. Due to his close affiliation with Kevin Sabet, I tend to believe he’s little more than a greasy politician.

Fans of the Colbert Report know that, during the show’s intro, words like “liberty” and “freedom” show up on screen and there is always one word/phrase that is special (something random or made up for laughs). The special word on this episode was “full pipe.” Now, on the surface I think this could be just a play on words due to the Olympics and the half-pipe snowboarding event. However, given the presence of Project SAM’s masthead, I have to wonder if there was another intention.

The interview opens with Stephen saying to Kennedy, “You’re a young, popular Democrat. Why are you Admiral Buzzshackler on this one? Make your case to America right now. Why should we not legalize pot?”

Kennedy: “I AM a good liberal democrat so I don’t like big business. This is the big business of addiction because marijuana has now moved from the hemp shirts to the briefcases and blue suits. The notion [is] that they can make money off people like me who are addicts because their money is in people like me who like to use more than is acceptable.”

Oddly enough, one point that Kennedy seemed to harp on was the existence of edibles. He says that people assume legalization is just being able to smoke pot, but then goes on to point out that it is much more than that, it is being able to sell products with THC in them. So his big gripe about legalization is edibles? Not sure exactly his point on that one, but it did lead into my favorite part of the interview.

At one point Stephen asks Kennedy if he ever smoked pot to which he replies that had edibles been around at that point he may have used them but, “I didn’t smoke [pot] due to asthma so I moved on to other things.”

Stephen masterfully adds, “Wait a second, if pot had been legal then maybe you would have stopped with pot.”

And, like a drugged quail walking into a snare, Kennedy lays his neck on the chopping block with this reply:

“I would have stopped with pot but then I wouldn’t have realized I had a problem because marijuana would have kept me on the slow train to nowhere a lot longer than cocaine or alcohol…marijuana you can smoke it for a long time and still be in denial. My denial was embarrassing, I got arrested several times. With marijuana I probably would have been able to get away with it a lot longer than I did.”

Let’s try to bring this look to Kennedy’s face 48 more times!

From that “rebuttal” (I guess) we can glean that had pot been legal when Kennedy was younger, he would likely never have moved onto abusing alcohol or Oxycontin and that pot smokers can “get away” (i.e. not exhibit a detriment) with their “problem” a lot longer. What kind of gateway drug is also a terminus? Denial, in this context, means that it is not a negative influence on their lives (I’ve been in denial about my pot addiction for about 10 years now). For those who have a hard time reading between the lines, that’s basically admitting that pot is safer than pills and alcohol. I wonder why Kennedy and Sabet aren’t heading a Project SAA (Smart Approaches to Alcohol) committee as well.

Stephen’s last question of any merit came characteristically wrapped in his snarky persona: “The other thing that worries me is that if we make marijuana legal, it might cut into Xanax sales because pharmaceuticals have a sweet little edge to them. Should we make pharmaceuticals illegal as well? Because they’re highly addictive.”

Kennedy’s meandering answer: “Well it’s like Oxycontin which I was addicted to…it felt really good and that’s now permissive. That’s the problem with making marijuana legal is it’s a permissive environment, just like going in and saying, ‘Oh, it’s medicine. I’ll take it. I’ll feel better and I really worry about the future of our country and with the anxiety level of our young people, the stress of our kids, we’re just adding something else that may in the short run make them feel better but in the long run us going to really cost them and cost our country.”

I’m kinda dumb. Did anyone find an answer in there about whether or not we should make pharmaceuticals illegal? He didn’t even bother trying to make up statistics to support his fear-mongering. It seems to me that if pot was legal, the use/abuse of other substances would drop. This is actually verified by a recent teen drug use survey that found a small (nearly insignificant) increase in cannabis use but also found steady decline in teen alcohol, “hard” drug, and even cigarette use. I can tell you that, as a parent, if my son was injured to the point of needing Oxycontin, I would emphatically prefer his doctor prescribe him cannabis.

I’m not in favor of making pharmaceuticals or alcohol illegal. Prohibition just doesn’t work. Not here, not anywhere. Not now, not ever. But I literally feel my mouth hang agape when I listen to this horseshit about the dangers of weed and why legalization is such a bad idea when those same talking heads refuse to look at alcohol and pharmaceuticals (which have killed more people in the time it took me to write this article than cannabis has, ever) through the same lens.

…in denial.

This interview went the same way as every other Project SAM interview. Lots of polished talking points and scare tactics while refusing to answer any questions with authenticity or facts. In answer to “why should pot be illegal” they say “big business will make money, your children will fall into a THC laden abyss,” When asked if pills should be made illegal, we are told pills are accepted in our culture and I’m scared for our kids. I could claim that zombies are allergic to cream corn and that argument would be supported just as well as Project SAM’s. We should attach a turbine to Kennedy’s mouth. He could easily power Manhattan with all that wind he’s spitting.

Project SAM’s slogan ought to be “lots of emotion, zero proof.”