Marijuana Legalization: Watch 'HLN' Host Nancy Grace and 'Dresser' Rapper 2 Chainz Weigh the Pros and Cons of Weed [Video]
"HLN" host Nancy Grace on Tuesday invited rapper 2 Chainz to discuss the pros and cons -- but mostly the cons -- of marijuana legalization.
The respective positions of the two debaters were not entirely surprising: 2 Chainz, whom TIME calls "a pretty big fan of weed," is in favor of doing away with laws restricting the sale and consumption of marijuana. Grace, who The Atlantic says defends a "statist, nannying approach to the matter," is staunchly opposed.
Grace's main argument, Newsweek reports, centers on a series of criminal cases she views as "emblematic of a future in which pot is widely legal." The host pointed to the death of a 3-year-old daughter of a Colorado couple that occurred while her parents were drinking and smoking pot on the porch. She also mentioned a Georgia teacher accused of letting minors smoke pot at her house and a 2014 incident in which a toddler was captured on video smoking a blunt while adult voices can be heard in the background.
"You can't use these particular stories to define everyone who uses (marijuana)," 2 Chainz countered. "You don't have to be a genius; you don't have to graduate from school; you don't have to a successful artist or entertainer to know that giving any child drugs is wrong."
Its downsides aside, marijuana comes with medical benefits, the rapper noted. For example, Colorado, where pot is legal, takes in hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes generated by sales, 2 Chainz explained suggesting that money currently used on minor drug arrests could be put to better use elsewhere.
Grace insisted, however, that marijuana legalization would disproportionately affect the most vulnerable, according to Rhe Atlantic.
"Other people don't have the advantages you have," she said. "Everybody is not responsible!"
Norman Kent, who heads the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, meanwhile, told Grace that 2 Chainz merely articulates "what millions and millions of Americans feel, which is that pot is perfectly normal."
"(His) children are going to grow up in a world where people use marijuana responsibly, where they don't go to jail unjustly, where cannabis consumers are going to be lawfully protected, where government revenues are going to be enhanced and we're all going to be better off," Kent said.
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