California’s medical marijuana system is known for being notoriously lax, where just about anyone can obtain a medical marijuana card for just about any condition. Call it a perk for being the first U.S. state to legalize pot for medical use. On Tuesday, Jimmy Kimmel Live! hit the streets of Los Angeles to talk to card-holding patients. And, inevitably, the results were pretty entertaining.
In the “Pedestrian Question” segment of Tuesday’s episode, one “patient” named Randy drew a blank when a show producer asked what his medical condition was for needing medical marijuana. After a long pause, he said, “I guess you need one, huh?” Another card-holding user, Joy, freely admitted that her condition was “children, jobs, life,” while Demetrius said he suffered from a condition called “suspect glaucoma.” When asked to clarify, he explained, “It means that in the future, I could have glaucoma.”
But of course, you don’t need a medical marijuana card to get weed. Josh, a guy from Utah who said he’d like a card for his birthday, nonetheless told the producer, “I’ve been smoking all day, girl,” before showing off his tattoos: a marijuana leaf with “420” written on his left shoulder, and wording on his chest written in cursive asking, “where the weed at.” Bob admitted that his son had a medical marijuana card. The reason? To “buy his dad medical marijuana.” The only person who didn’t smoke at all was a man in a Superman costume named Justin, who explained, “I don’t believe in using ’em.”
It’s likely that California voters will get to decide whether to legalize marijuana for recreational use this year, as the Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act makes its way to the November ballot. Last month, Jimmy Kimmel talked marijuana policy with Hillary Clinton, who took the time to clarify her stance on legalization. The presidential hopeful said she wants marijuana to be “put on a lower schedule so we can actually do research,” although she didn’t state how far down from Schedule I she would move it.
Clinton said she supports the decision of individual states to loosen marijuana policies across the country. “I think what the states are doing right now needs to be supported,” she said. “And I absolutely support all the states that are moving toward medical marijuana, moving toward absolutely legalizing it for recreational use. But I want to see what the states learn from that experience because there are still a lot of questions we have to answer at the federal level.”
