Joe Rogan addressed weed’s reclassification to Schedule III during his podcast with attorney Josh Dubin, offering his perspective on the policy reform and contrasting weed with legal s**stances.
“So today, right before we started this, Trump rescheduled m**ijuana. So it’s now schedule three. So it’s in the same category as Tylenol, which is interesting,” Rogan noted.
He clarified that the reform places weed in the same category as Tylenol, though he acknowledged this specifically refers to Tylenol with codeine rather than standard acetaminophen.
When asked about the reclassification, Rogan expressed cautious optimism while maintaining that it doesn’t go far enough. “Well, it’s better, you know, certainly it’s better,” he said. “I believe if it’s rescheduled, what does that mean? It could be prescribed now, you know, and it can be prescribed state by state.”
However, Rogan made clear his ultimate position: “I feel like it should be like al**hol. I think you should be of a certain age to be able to use it.”
Rogan emphasized that ca**abis isn’t universally beneficial, stating: “I think it’s not for everybody. I think that’s important that it isn’t for everybody. There are people that have very particularly vulnerable psychological states, mental constitutions whether they have a history of mental illness or whatever, especially like high-dose mari**ana.”
He referenced author Alex Berenson’s research on potential risks, noting instances of “people that have schizophrenic breaks from high doses of THC.” Rogan acknowledged uncertainty about causation: “Whether or not they would have had those schizophrenic breaks anyway, you know, we don’t know.”
Drawing a comparison to other legal su**tances, Rogan pointed out that acetaminophen “is responsible for at least 500 deaths a year,” yet remains freely available. “I think you should be able to take Tylenol. Just don’t take enough to f**king kill you. I think that’s that should be the case with al**hol.”
On broader policy, Rogan and Dubin advocated for a harm reduction approach inspired by international models. “We could learn something from countries in Europe that decriminalized not just m***juana but other drugs,” Dubin said. “If you look at the statistics on, you know, the rate of crime, the rate of the incidence of overdose, it plummets.”
Rogan agreed and specifically cited Portugal as “an excellent example.”
Rogan acknowledged potential challenges with legalization: “You’re going to have a bunch of people that abuse it. They’re going to say, ‘Oh, it’s legal now. Let’s go.’ And a bunch of people going to do it that don’t do it. You’ll have problems. But you’re taking the band-aid off.”
He explained the historical context of ca**abis prohibition, detailing how William Randolph Hearst and Harry Anslinger orchestrated m**ijuana’s criminalization in the 1930s to protect paper mill interests threatened by hemp fiber production. “We’ve been stuck in that same horses**t since the 1930s,” Rogan said.
Regarding harder s**stances like c**aine, Rogan suggested legalization could undermine criminal enterprises: “If you were to make c**aine legal in the United States, you’d essentially put the cartels out of business, right? Because that’s probably their main business.”
He noted that regulated s**stances would be safer: “You’d have way less accidental overdose deaths because a lot of it is not people overdosing from actual c**aine. It’s getting f*ntanyl.”
Rogan concluded with a philosophical stance on personal freedom: “I think one of the things about being a human being is as much freedom as you can give people, the better. And also inform them about the dangers of whatever choices they make. Give them an informed ability to make a decision for themselves. This is what it means to be a free human being.”
