Eliot Spitzer: Spending Money on Prosecuting Pot Is Ridiculous

Former New York governor and attorney general Eliot Spitzer says he not only supports medical marijuana, but thinks we should replace marijuana prohibition with legalization.  Speaking on Friday night on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," Spitzer said: "To spend prosecutorial resources on pot is ridiculous...I'd be in favor of legalized pot. Legalizing pot is the right way to go."

Check out the entire marijuana discussion by Maher's panel of guests, starting at 4:22 in to this clip:

It's nice to see a group of people with such different political leanings all agreeing that it's time to end prohibition. Still, the joke from Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal at the end of the discussion about how supporting legalization might somehow hurt Spitzer's future political aspirations is particularly unfortunate...and premised on a roundly absurd notion.

While supporting legalization himself, Moore doesn't seem to realize that marijuana legalization is one rare issue that he, Spitzer and -- oh yeah -- a majority of American voters all agree on.

Come to think of it... the idea that supporting legalization would harm any future aspirations at elected office Spitzer might have, or the political pursuits of most any office seeker in 21st century America, is becoming funnier all the time. Perhaps an appropriate joke for Maher's show after all.

In the clip, even Spitzer himself only reluctantly got around to stating that he'd favor ending marijuana prohibition across the board instead of just allowing medical marijuana. It's a strange thing, this tendency of political figures to act as if they should be afraid to say something that a rapidly growing majority of American voters agree with.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on the Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) blog.