O'Reilly on Weed

Jacob Sullum | June 1, 2006

For those of you who (like me) missed the O'Reilly Factor appearance by Ricardo Cortes, author of the children's marijuana book It's Just a Plant, it's available here. The interview is notable for its surprisingly mild tone and for O'Reilly's concession, about a minute in, that "Just Say No doesn't always work." Since the book's anti-prohibition message is not exactly subtle, it's odd that O'Reilly latches on to Cortes' expression of thanks to George Soros, a major patron of the drug policy reform movement, as evidence of the author's support for marijuana legalization. Cortes, for his part, is weirdly evasive about why he thanked Soros (the book was supported by two Soros-funded groups, the Marijuana Policy Project and the Drug Policy Alliance) and what he thinks about the drug laws, although he eventually says he has a legalization plan that may or may not be similar to the one Soros supports.