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Entertainment

Morgan Freeman: Criminalization of marijuana is ‘stupidest law possible’

by Similoluwa Ojurongbe | July 18, 2012 at 12:59 PM
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(Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for AFI)

(Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for AFI)

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Oscar winner Morgan Freeman has been acting since 1964, when he has an uncredited bit role in the film The Pawnbroker. Since then he has played a wide variety roles from a pimp to the president, to God.

theGrio slideshow: Morgan Freeman’s top 10 film roles

In an interview with Newsweek, Freeman is asked about his new movie The Dark Knight Rises. But the interviewer also asks Freeman about his stance on marijuana:

Marijuana! Heavens, oh yeah. It’s just the stupidest law possible, given history. You don’t stop people from doing what they want to do, so forget about making it unlawful. You’re just making criminals out of people who aren’t engaged in criminal activity. And we’re spending zillions of dollars trying to fight a war we can’t win! We could make zillions, just legalize it and tax it like we do liquor. It’s stupid.

Freeman also weighs in on same-sex marriage:

I grew up in the South but I started dancing in my twenties when I got out of the Air Force, and studying dance, you’re surrounded by gay guys all the time. You get to know them and you have to shift gears!

This is not the first time Freeman has made statements that are to say the least non-conservative. In 2011, Freeman said that the Tea Party was racist and out to get Obama.

“Their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term,” the actor said. “What’s, what does that, what underlines that? ‘Screw the country. We’re going to whatever we do to get this black man, we can, we’re going to do whatever we can to get this black man outta here.’

And in June, the actor said he thought “we invented God.” Freeman also raised eyebrows this past week when he argued that Obama was not the first black president.

Click here to read more of the interview including Freeman’s best and worst film making experiences.

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Filed in: Entertainment | Related Topics: Barack Obama, Decriminalization, Drugs, Marijuana, Morgan Freeman, Newsweek, Pawnbroker, Pot, Tea Party, The Dark Knight Rises
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