Is Rand Paul’s congressional bromance partner Cory Booker stealing his lines now?
In an interview for CNN’s “Weed 3” documentary, Booker told Dr. Sanjay Gupta—who famously changed his mind on weed legalization—“Let’s stop the pot hypocrisy.”
“We now have had three presidents that have admitted to smoking marijuana,” Booker said. “People that are in public office all throughout the Senate have said, hey, I’ve smoked marijuana recreationally.”
“How much of a hypocrite do you have to be to say that I broke American laws using pot as a recreational thing and that I’m not going to support this idea that as a medicine for severely sick people, that they shouldn’t be able to access this drug?”
This closely mirrors comments made recently by Paul, who mocked Jeb Bush’s “hypocrisy” on pot. Bush has admitted to smoking pot during his boarding school days, but now does not support any kind of legalization.
“He was even opposed to medical marijuana,” Paul said in February. “This is a guy who now admits he smoked marijuana but he wants to put people in jail who do.”
“I think that’s the real hypocrisy, is that people on our side, which include a lot of people who made mistakes growing up, admit their mistakes but now still want to put people in jail for that,” he said. “And hypocrisy is, ‘Hey I did it and it’s okay for me because I was rich and at an elite school but if you’re poor and black or brown and live in a poor section of one of our big cities, we’re going to put you in jail and throw away the key.”
Booker and Paul have worked together on several justice reform initiatives, including a recent bill that would open up research for medical marijuana and give states that have legalized a safe haven from federal laws.
Watch Booker’s interview below, via CNN:
(h/t Mediaite)
