Stephen Colbert Rips John Kasich On Pot Stance, It ‘Ruins Lives’

Stephen Colbert dug into John Kasich, Ohio governor and presidential candidate, over his position against legalizing recreational marijuana. The politician made his case, deflating some of the harsher criticism against pot arrests, but also had to dodge some difficult questions.

“Is that really pot, the drug crisis?” Colbert asked according to CBS News. “Lots of people are going to jail for minor infractions, and it ruins their entire life.”

Ohio’s legislature had recently defeated a measure to legalize recreational marijuana. John Kasich didn’t block the bill himself, but he said he was on the side of those people who defeated the measure.

Non-violent drug offenses have contributed to the exploding prison population over the last few decades, and forced people out of potential employment. But the Ohio governor had a ready defense for Colbert’s criticism, saying “we don’t do that in Ohio, okay?”

“We don’t even want serious drug addicts to be locked in prison for the rest of their life. We treat them, and we pass them off to the community and the recidivism rate for our prisons in Ohio for the drug addicted is less than 20 percent. And we have also said that if a person is rehabing themselves we want to give them a chance to get out and be successful.”

Governor John Kasich has a relatively progressive track record on the issue of incarceration for non-violent offenders. In 2011, he signed into law a sentencing reform bill that allowed people convicted of lesser crimes to skip jail time altogether, as reported by Cleveland.com.

The use of background checks are also heavily regulated in Ohio, according to NOLO, allowing employers to only to ask about convictions. In job interviews, applicants can pretend any proceedings that were expunged or sealed never happened, and Kasich insists that many minor drug offenses are taken off the books.

Still, John Kasich stood firm on the subject of banning marijuana explaining, “We don’t want to tell our kids, ‘Don’t do drugs, but by the way, this drug’s okay.'”

Stephen Colbert quickly quipped, “isn’t that what alcohol is?” earning a loud applause from the audience.

The governor admitted to smoking pot in his youth, but instead of giving a thorough answer, Kasich tried to dodge.

“Maybe. If I got you to come out and campaign for me.”

The response fell flat.

The GOP candidate quickly reverted to a more serious tone, explaining he went to school in the 1970s but never saw the drug problem as bad as it is today. He quickly added that, in Ohio, if someone were convicted of non-violent crimes, like drug possession, then the state would give them a chance to get their record cleared.

Stephen Colbert admitted, “that’s great.”

The interview quickly went viral, with people still undecided on how well Kasich handled the tough questions. Still, according to the Huffington Post, the GOP candidate is still at odds with the 58 percent of the American public that now favor legalizing recreational marijuana.

In the GOP primaries, even if the interview garners the candidate some much needed attention, he still has a long way to go to catch up in the polls. John Kasich stands at about 2.8 percent according to Real Clear Politics, putting him in seventh place.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert airs on CBS weeknights at 11:35 p.m./10:35 c.

[Image Credit: Youtube.com/The Late Show with Stephen Colbert]