I live in Oregon, So my experience with the legal side of Marijuana is different than a lot of the country. We don't have to worry about a traffic stop and having a joint or a bag of weed sending you to jail. I can almost certainly say that law enforcement actually appreciates it. One time, right around the time that it just became legal here but you weren't allowed to go into the shops yet (it was a weird time), I got pulled over and had some on me. For the first time, I had weed on me for a traffic stop. At first, I was really nervous, almost to the point of trying to throw my bag under my seat to hid it. Then it came to me that it is ok, I left it on my seat in plain day, the cop asked me if I had anything in the car and I was honest. I said "Yes sir, I have an 1/8th of weed on me". All he said was "oh, that's ok, I'm not too worried about that". He gave me a warning for speeding, told me to have a nice day, and that was that. It was so different than other traffic stops I had been on when I didn't have any on me and I was treated like a criminal because I was a teenager with long hair (automatically a pot head apparently). All of those states where it is legal in have an amazing amount of tax revenue being generated for the school systems, roads, and other public works projects, money that they wouldn't have had without the sale of this "dangerous plant". I use it for medical reasons and recreational reasons, it helps me with Chronic Pain, Sleep issues due to that Chronic Pain, and severe clinical depression. But do I like to get high, too? You're damn right I do. We are adults, and honestly if you're not hurting someone else with the things that you do, then leave us alone. It's our right to put whatever we want to in our bodies without someone else coming along and saying it's wrong. All it boils down to are other people trying to place their morals onto another person.

It's quite interesting that we blame the legally-illiterate, yet make NO MENTION of the aggression of the Judges/system that/who -- BEING LITERATE -- should know better, and should NOT be using the law to administer their own biased ideas, or play IGNORANT to the very core concepts of honest JUSTICE (i.e. no CRIME (injured person, damage to property, etc)), or assault people's liberties for their own PROFIT, and self-entertainment, and self-aggrandizement ...

Man, the Internet is a treasure trove with speeches like this.

This man is a hero and deserves public recognition as such.

great talk, especially the part about how being literate enabled u to beat an unfair rap, and how many thousands of others are getting screwed over for lack of an education!

great speech. almost flawless

Thanks for the show

great talk I liked his point on illiteracy!!

Fantastic! Thank you.

excellent. very good honest talk

That was amazing! 👏

It's a sad epidemic that the government even looks at marijuana in any way at all. It should be wide open for people to do whatever they want with it

Profoundly true message

11:50 he drops the best quote I've ever heard.

Respect sir

Change is around the corner. The right to do what you want with your own body is well on its way. I would love to see a day when all these innocent people are pardoned and released from prison.

YES, YES, MANY TIMES YES FOR REASON AND FOR GOOD

1.25 speed

Free the weed !

I like that Ted Talks allows the tough subjects. Drug use, prison issues are hard subjects. Congrats to TT for pushing the line!

Since our Creator provided us each with a Endocannabinoid System (ECS), the consumption of cannabis to relieve your human condition is a natural right.

That's a good man NO COMMENT and would not snitch his friend. GOOD MAN. NOT GRASS

Marijuana should be legalized and should NEVER have been criminalized.

Free our brothers and sisters

Almost started crying at the end.

I often find my self asking why i'm labeled a criminal though? I have a job, i attend college full time, I am active at home and with friends. so i always have to sit back and ask my self, am I really a criminal? am I really the kind of person you want to lock up and put away in jail for a few years because i have a ounce of pot? You want me to sit behind bars with people who sexually violate children and murder other humans because i smoke dope in my free time? even at this very moment typing this i could be raided and taken to jail, even though i feel like your average every day joe with nothing that the average person would consider unreasonable.

I'm dyslexic. I'm not sure i could defend myself properly in written words without spell check. However I think i could if i watched enough videos on law. And i spoke my defense. These people were not seen as apart of the cultural ideal.

God bless this guy

oh shit .... this must be the guy from HIGH TIMES article in the late 70s ...... wow , time flies .

it's people with addictive personalities that are the " problem " not the drugs opium is used the world over as pain medication it's people who abuse it that give it a bad name and it's the same with everything you can get addicted to cheeseburgers it's not McDonald's fault. People just need something to blame other than themselves, have some accountability

End the drug war!

this guy looks like an older version of Michelle from GTA V

Good talk, but whats so sad is that those who make and sell alcohol are also drug producers, distributors and sellers, and just look at the global problems to family life and the work place that this fun drug can have. I have experienced both and also grown weed just for personal use but alcohol was definitely no good for me personally because I was a binge drinker and it's just so much harder to quit. Humans have always looked for ways to get off their faces and as we all know the war on drugs has failed so why can't we just legalise everything and let the government produce, sell and distribute the stuff themselves, and by reducing the price I would argue that overnight they would put most if not all the dealers out of business and all the profits could be used to treat those addicted to drugs. The reason that we have the really deadly drugs like meths and crack and countless other substances is because they were produced to circumnavigate the illegal drug laws so that when one of them was banned the chemists just altered a few molecules, called it by a new name and it was on sale again. Eventually they had an outright ban and the local authorities all breathed a sigh of relief. We could also empty the prisons of many offenders who are inside for minor offences and this would save taxpayers a small fortune. Pandora's box is wide open and we can never shut it, so for Odins sake lets allow adults to take their drug of choice, and I would rather have a joint than a beer any day. Lastly, isn't it strange how none of the people who fekked up the finance system in 2008 through mis-selling worthless triple A rated shares and all those who were in favour of deregulating banks causing millions of job losses, umpteen deaths and who nearly crashed the financial system all seem to have got away with their fortunes intact except in Iceland where they jailed their bankers, so, why can't we do this in the US & UK with our crooked bankers I wonder?

Marijuaner 😂 😂 😂 love it!

#jurynullification learn about it show the State the people are the only Authority

Cannabis is a medical necessity for all those of us who have been consuming metabolically poisonous Vegetable oils in our diets and getting one or more of many more modern diseases. The solution is to go vegan and take cannabis supplementation until you are better while getting all vegetable oils out of your diet. You can use some polysaturated animal food-based oil, that in all animal products if you are not quite so worried about living as long as reasonably possible while remaining perfectly healthy.

Stop Trumpet and Sessions! Period!

LIFE FOR WEED WHAT A SHAME

Folks, when those fools tell you that that direction is where his loving arms are. Don't go, do a 180 or at least 90, any less than 90 you will still fall into his loving arms and that is very very very bad. His loving arms can snuff the breath out of you in an instant.

Any smuggler out there..? There is no market here.

People will be incarcerated one day for putting kids in jail for this.

FREE WEED VOTED FOR ME BELLSRINGER

"war on plants" man, american loves that word right?

He only trafficked marijuana 😂 okay 👍

If he had hired an attorney instead of representing himself, he would never have been convicted 25 years in the first place.

I disagree with Richard Stratton on several points he made. I will address one of them here. He said people of the street, don't get a good education or are not afforded a good education in this country. I disagree strongly on this point. If you don't get a education because you don't want to get a education, who's fault is that? Certainly not mine or the educators fault. If you don't go to school because you would rather hang out on the corner selling drugs, who's fault is that. There are almost unlimited opportunities to get an education in this country. If you don't take advantage of them or don't want to take advantage of them, then don't cry about the system taking advantage of you.

CEO? And the guy standing on my corner is regional manager? ....White privilege

What a hero. Not. Makes millions breaking the law and I am supposed to feel sorry for him.

The way this guy breathes while talking is so annoying. Reminds me of Trump during the debate.

This guy justifies his behavior, " only marijuana, organic". It is against the law no matter how you feel about marijuana. He knew what he was doing, learn from your experience buddy. No sympathy here, none deserved.