Jimmy Kimmel Addresses Marijuana Legalization At White House Correspondents' Dinner 2012

Jimmy Kimmel, host of the 2012 White House Correspondents' Dinner, addressed marijuana legalization in his speech.

While delivering his remarks at the 2012 White House Correspondents' Dinner, comedian Jimmy Kimmel addressed the issue of marijuana legalization.

"What is with the marijuana crackdown? Seriously, what is the concern? We will deplete the nation's Funyun supply?" Kimmel said. "Pot smokers vote too. Sometimes a week after the election, but they vote."

Kimmel then posed a challenge to the crowd, which was made up of celebrities like Kim Kardashian and George Clooney.

"I would like everyone in this room to raise your hand if you've never smoked pot," Kimmel said.

Few hands went up.

Noting the crowd's reaction, Kimmel addressed President Barack Obama directly.

"Marijuana is something that real people care about," Kimmel said.

Obama, who recently said he doesn't "mind a debate" about drug legalization, has increased the crackdown on medical marijuana producers across the nation, including a recent high-profile raid on a California training school. He addressed the crackdown and attempted to clarify his 2008 comments that he was "not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws [on medical marijuana]" in a recent interview with Rolling Stone:

Speaking with Rolling Stone, the president tried to explain his original comments, claiming that the recent pressure on dispensaries and providers was in line with his intent.

"What I specifically said was that we were not going to prioritize prosecutions of persons who are using medical marijuana," Obama said. "I never made a commitment that somehow we were going to give carte blanche to large-scale producers and operators of marijuana -- and the reason is, because it's against federal law."

The president continued: "I can't nullify congressional law. I can't ask the Justice Department to say, 'Ignore completely a federal law that's on the books.' What I can say is, 'Use your prosecutorial discretion and properly prioritize your resources to go after things that are really doing folks damage.' As a consequence, there haven't been prosecutions of users of marijuana for medical purposes."

Attorney General Eric Holder was a guest of The Huffington Post at the correspondents' dinner. Before it began, a HuffPost reporter noted to Holder that Obama's reference to "congressional law" was misleading because the executive branch could simply remove marijuana from its "schedule one" designation, thereby recognizing its medical use.

"That's right," Holder said.

After Kimmel's speech, a Holder deputy told HuffPost that there was no coordinated war on medical marijuana, but that some individual clinics were breaking both state and federal laws.

This story has been updated with remarks from Attorney General Eric Holder and a Holder deputy.

Ryan Grim contributed to this report.

Comments

[dbrett480]

04:27 PM on 05/25/2012

Kimmel's appearance just made me wish the greatness of Stephen Colbert at the Correspondents' dinner.

[Ken A Ferguson]

03:31 PM on 05/22/2012

"Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
- Abraham Lincoln, December 1840

If the words "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" don't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp it was written on.
- Terence McKenna

[Paul Paul]

01:05 AM on 05/02/2012

The end has begun.
Obama will never be able to escape.
People will be asking him all the time, why and why not?
Look at all the comments here.
Obama, it's time to legalize.

[ChrisInAR]

12:49 PM on 05/04/2012

You mean RE-legalize.

As far as I know, marijuana was perfectly legal in the US until the days of the Progressive Movement. Asian immigrants brought opiates with them during the early 20th Century, & opium products were outlawed in 1913. Mexican immigrants enjoyed smoking marijuana, & it was basically outlawed by FDR w/ his signing of the Marihuana Tax Act in 1937.

[Lindsgrace33]

09:19 PM on 05/01/2012

LEGALIZE IT!

[Bellla]

06:18 PM on 05/01/2012

Hey hey for Jimmy K.!

[DailyBudKushMag]

06:06 PM on 05/01/2012

We talked about the dinner here too and gave you a little Kush love - http://www.kushmagazine.com/news/2838-jimmy-kimmel-talks-marijuana-at-white-house-correspondents-dinner

[Ma Lucille]

05:38 PM on 05/01/2012

the War on Drugs should be on the budget cutting table instead of SS & Medicare.

"The U.S. federal government spent over $15 billion dollars in 2010 on the War on Drugs, at a rate of about $500 per second.

State and local governments spent at least another 25 billion dollars."

http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/DrugProhibitionWP.pdf

[Ma Lucille]

05:18 PM on 05/01/2012

"Forty million Americans smoked marijuana; the only ones who didn't like it were Judge Ginsberg, Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton."

Jay Leno

[PalaceOfWisdom]

05:12 PM on 05/01/2012

Very little Obama says surprises me anymore, but this one made me freeze for ten seconds in utter disbelief. So he isn't looking to prosecute users of medical marijuana, just to make it impossible for them to obtain it by expanding a legal war on providers. He sees nothing contradictory about this at all. And somehow, against all logic and three years of irrefutable evidence, millions of Americans continue to support him as someone who is honest and responsive to our will.

[April Sutherland]

09:06 PM on 05/04/2012

I think it's all political at this point. He is not going to stand up for legalization or decriminalization during an election year. I hope you are wrong and he will leave them alone as a lame duck. Even Nancy Pelosi criticized him for this earlier in the week.

[Caito Jones]

05:10 PM on 05/01/2012

The people/organizations they went after were not breaking state/local laws. If Obama gets re-elected, this time next year Tommy Chong will be dead or in prison. And Ted Nugent will be dead regardless because he's been suffering maddening delusions from "cat scratch fever" for years.

[PC Contrarian]

03:45 PM on 05/01/2012

For those who still doubt there's a media bias, listen to the laughs when the jokes are at the expense of Romney and the Repubs vs. Obama.
Now remember when the correspondent dinner jokes were during Bush's terms.

The 85% Dem registered DC Press shows.

[mw21]

04:40 PM on 05/01/2012

Lighten up. (Or in keeping with Kimmel's address, just light up.)

[PC Contrarian]

06:24 PM on 05/01/2012

Sure thing.
Here's a joke for you:

Last Tuesday President Obama got off the helicopter in front of The White House - carrying a baby piglet under each arm.

The squared-away Marine guard snapped to attention, saluted and said: "Nice pigs, sir."

The President replied: "These are not pigs. These are Authentic Arkansas Razorback Hogs. I got one for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and I got one for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi."

The squared-away Marine again snapped to attention, salutes and said, "Excellent trade, sir."

LMAO!
Great huh?

[PD1953]

01:26 AM on 05/06/2012

Sigh. And the editors WHO CONTROL WHAT IS PRINTED are about that 85% level on the Republican side. OFC, that story doesn't get mentioned very often, because the EDITORS don't like it.

BTW, Bush had obvious problems speaking. People with his problem speaking have a disorder known as aphasia. Look it up. Read some of his transcripts on CNN, then go read the cleaned up versions that were actually published in articles, I have done this. Then come back and defend the idea that the press was out to "get" Bush. It would be funny if you did, because it cannot be done, not with evidence of that order in the public domain and easily available. Of course, most Bush supporters stick their fingers in their ears and start yelling "la la la la la la la" whenever something concrete and factual is discussed, so good day to you sir. I hope you enjoy your 'la la la la".

[George McAulay]

02:28 PM on 05/01/2012

There is a new and significant revenue to be raised by acknowledging and taxing the product.

Personal use of any illicit drug is a victimless crime and any penalties should not involve jailing or a criminal record. It solves nothing.

[PalaceOfWisdom]

05:16 PM on 05/01/2012

The tax argument misses the primary point. Smoking pot in and of itself is a personal choice that harms no one. As such, it should not be subject to government approval in the first place. And that's coming from one of the few whose hand would have been raised as never having used drugs. The drug war is one of the worst examples of Big Brother making decisions for us.

[justsayknow]

09:09 PM on 05/01/2012

Agreed. The people who do not use drugs are the ones who should be most enraged at the enormous waste of money and resources on a proven failure. Prohibition has never and will never work except to make things worse. And you and I pay for this.

[MikeLawson]

01:35 PM on 05/01/2012

Let's be honest. The president would probably personally not mind seeing it decriminalized, HOWEVER, he's got enough problems with the right wing radical racists who routinely lie about things he does, who would have a field day with the black guy in the white house making "dope" legal for all his homies.

Anyone who thought that the nation's first black president could lead the charge to change these insane laws about pot, which was largely outlawed because black people were thought to smoke it, get super powers and go after the white women, were living in fantasy land and not understanding the vicious, vile, hateful rightwing of this country. To these people its bad enough there is a black president, but he didn't even have the decency to be the decedent of an American slave. Anyone who knows the history of pot prohibition knows how deeply race was used in scaring the right wing nuts of Harry J Anslinger's day to support this prohibition.

[mw21]

04:41 PM on 05/01/2012

Very well said. Thanks for the insightful review of history. Faved and fanned.

[Ma Lucille]

05:16 PM on 05/01/2012

but it would be Poetic Justice if a black President defying decades of racist oppression simply rescheduled Cannabis...

[Keagan86]

01:17 PM on 05/01/2012

I'm no libertarian, but I agree with Gary Johnson's comparison between Prohibition and Marijuana. If we regulate it and tax it, we can prevent so much crime from happening and make sure that less kids have access to it.

[George McAulay]

02:32 PM on 05/01/2012

F & F mate.

Filling US jails is a corporate business. 1 in 47 US citizens is either in jail or on parole compared with 1 in 1000 in most western countries.

Victimless crimes like possession shouldn't result in convictions or criminal records for life.

[rcmdr7]

12:02 PM on 05/01/2012

Noone has yet to adress the issue that Congress passed laws for the District of Columbia to have and use Medical Marijuana ... where is the DEA at and why arent they shutting this down, instead of across the counrty hurting people in their homes?... seems like it would send a clearer message to the American people if they would tend to their own backyard instead of crapping in mine...Oh, i wonder how many of our so called Right Wing Conservative politicians have MM cards and partake of the "medicine"....