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Chris Hayes challenged Bill O’Reilly on Tuesday night over the Fox News host’s claim about pot arrests.
“Only dealers — there’s no mass arrest of users… they get a ticket,” O’Reilly had argued on Monday. “It is not a crime that is actively pursued by district attorneys.”
On Tuesday, Hayes labeled O’Reilly a “marijuana truther,” who he described as conservatives who do not believe that people get arrested for possessing pot.
He countered O’Reilly by pulling up 2012 FBI statistics that showed 42 percent of drug-possession arrests were for marijuana. He also pointed out that black Americans are disproportionately arrested for pot use.
“Bill O’Reilly is not the first older privileged white guy to express a lack of understanding of the devastating impact that marijuana arrests can have,” Hayes concluded, “but we can thank him for reminding us of an all-important truth: just because something bad doesn’t happen to people you know doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen at all.”
Bill O’Reilly Wrong On Pot Arrests
Article by Katherine Fung for Huffington Post