Bill Maher on Larry King

Yesterday’s Larry King show, included this exchange with Bill Maher and a caller:

KING: Oakville, Ontario, hello.
CHAMNEY: Hi, Mr. Maher, I’m absolutely thrilled to be speaking with you.
MAHER: Well, I’m thrilled to be talking to you, too.
CHAMNEY: My question for you is, do you plan on staying behind the marijuana
mission?
I don’t know if you’ve realized…
MAHER: I do.
CHAMNEY: But you’ve saved peoples’ lives up here in Canada and the United
States. It was because of you discussing it on TV and a Web site called The
Marijuana Mission that made my family understand what marijuana does for people.
And it actually stopped my grandma’s seizures. So, I’m no longer considered an
epileptic just because I smoke it every day. And I appreciate you so much. And
we talk about you up here all the time. You should run for Congress, sir.
MAHER: Thank you.
CHAMNEY: You remind me so much of my lawyer Alan Young, and he is the greatest
one up here speaking about marijuana and you keep on talking down there, buddy.
MAHER: You keep puffing as the president said, let’s roll. It’s a good
opportunity for me to bring up Tommy Chong. Tommy of “Cheech and Chong,” you
know he’s in jail right now. He was…
KING: I didn’t know.
MAHER: On the anniversary of 9/11, that’s how brazen this Justice Department is.
On the anniversary of 9/11, they arrested Tommy Chong for selling bongs over the
Internet, Larry. We cannot allow that to happen. Do you feel safer? Do you feel
safer now?
This is what I would like to say to the Bush administration about that. You
can’t have it both ways. Either 9/11 was such a transforming event and is such a
dire threat that we need the Patriotic Act, the Patriotic Act II which could
curtail a lot of civil liberties that we need to go to Iraq or you can bust
Tommy Chung. You can’t it have both ways. You can’t have the Patriotic Act and
curtail the civil liberties because 9/11 was that bad and also have the time to
go after Tommy Chung for selling bongs on the Internet. Can’t have it both ways.
KING: You favor the legalization?
MAHER: Of course. Another no-brainer. There’s a religion out there, too, having
to do with drug laws. It’s also nonsense.
KING: You’d legalize all drugs?
MAHER: I would. Yes. But obviously other drugs, it is a different situation,
because other drugs can be very dangerous…