U.S. Government Says No to Medical Marijuana
VAUSE: A major setback for supporters of legalized pot with the U.S. government deciding not to lift restrictions on marijuana. After a lengthy review, officials announced the drug will remain a schedule I drugs, which is defined as "having no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse and with potentially severe psychological and physical dependence." That keeps marijuana in the same category as heroine, LSD and ecstasy.</s>SESAY: Comedian, writer and marijuana advocate, Tommy Chong, joins us right now. Tommy, good to have you with us once again.</s>TOMMY CHONG, COMEDIAN & WRITER & MARIJUANA ADVOCATE: Thank you.</s>SESAY: Why do you think the DEA continues to resist calls to reclassify --</s>CHONG: Well, if we legalize marijuana, then we don't need the DEA. So they are really trying to hang on to their job.</s>VAUSE: Well, they do more than worry about marijuana. There's a lot of other drugs out there, surely.</s>CHONG: Name them.</s>VAUSE: There's ecstasy, cocaine, heroine.</s>CHONG: That sells as much as marijuana?</s>VAUSE: Well not as much.</s>CHONG: You see, marijuana is the number-one cash crop this America for years and years and years. You know what that means? Number-one cash crop in the world. Billions of dollars. That's when it was illegal. Now once it becomes legal, it's going to be the biggest cash crop in the world for beating out everything. And so we won't need police to tell us that we can't use this miraculous plant. It will be legal and it will be available for everybody. And it's -- we're coming into that now.</s>SESAY: I mean, there was the opening today that they created allowing more marijuana growth for medical research, many seeing that as a step forward. What do you see as the implications?</s>CHONG: It's lame attempt that the government -- first of all, when the government grew medical marijuana, and so on, it was a mess. It's horrible. It's terrible. That's why the black market, the people that grew it, know how to grow pot. They were supplying all the medical people with it now. And now that we've got medical marijuana, we can do that legally. We don't have to hide or anything.</s>VAUSE: That's the thing. You have the federal government essentially saying, this isn't legal but you have 25 states and D.C., District of Columbia, saying it's OK for either medical use or recreational use.</s>CHONG: Think about it. The DEA, first of all, they have forfeiture laws. If they catch you with a marijuana garden, they can take your house, your car, whatever cash you have in the house. If you have a weapon, a gun in the house with your pot plant, you can go to jail for five years.</s>VAUSE: One of the things which is interesting about this decision by the DEA keeping marijuana as schedule I level, if you look at schedule II, that's drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine. It's a difficult case to make that marijuana is more dangerous than those two drugs, isn't it?</s>CHONG: Well, first of all, if you approach it like -- are we talking recreation here or medicine?</s>VAUSE: Well, either or both.</s>CHONG: Well, recreation, like smoking, for instance, is recreational habit and it's bad for you. But yet, you know, the government allows it, even though it's proven it causes cancer. The government tells you that, but it's still legal. It's still allowed. Whereas, marijuana is the opposite. Marijuana helps people with illnesses. It's been shown. You know, Sanjay Gupta showed that young baby, that 1-year-old baby, you know? And so --- Montel Williams, he has M.S. to the point that if he didn't smoke marijuana every day, he would be in a wheelchair, he would be dead. So for the government to have the ignorant attitude about that, it's not medical, is just total -- it's another lie. It's just a big die.</s>VAUSE: But will it be legalized anytime soon, executive order? What do you think?</s>CHONG: It's going to be legal, I hope --</s>SESAY: You said in your lifetime.</s>CHONG: I hope President Obama will make an executive order and legalize it.</s>VAUSE: OK, we'll see.</s>SESAY: Tommy, always a pleasure.</s>CHONG: Thank you.</s>SESAY: Thank you for being so passionate about the issue.</s>CHONG: Thank you.</s>SESAY: One in a million, Tommy Chong.</s>VAUSE: Tommy Chong, there he was.</s>SESAY: Well, we haven't seeing rugby in the Olympics for nearly a century, but the squad from Fiji is bringing the thunder. What makes the gold medal victory so special, next on NEWSROOM L.A.