Nancy Grace, 2 Chainz Agree — Infants Shouldn’t Smoke Pot, Debate Continues Anyways

Media outlets around the world are declaring a victory for 2 Chainz in the debate with Nancy Grace over marijuana legalization. It was one of those victories that’s difficult, even painful, to watch. Likewise, it was not particularly informative.

The debate starts and ends with Nancy Grace showing YouTube videos of parents giving their children marijuana, something that nobody, not even 2 Chainz, has ever endorsed.

She then makes the leap from child abuse to legalizing marijuana for adults, asking, “when you hear about cases like this, why do still support the legalization of marijuana?”

Of course, the effort to pigeonhole all pot users as child abusers will fall on deaf ears for most people, except maybe Nancy Grace’s regular audience. But, that argument seems even more futile considering that 2 Chainz serves as his own anecdote; a pot user with children who does not force his kids to smoke.

Still, as far as anecdotal evidence goes, 2 Chainz was slightly unprepared, since Nancy had multiple YouTube videos and 2 Chainz did not bring a laptop or an iPad. The rapper tried to take the debate away from being a YouTube search competition, and reminded Nancy that he doesn’t support infant drug use, nor does it have anything to do with the debate over legalizing pot for adults.

In fact, both Colorado and Washington, the country’s foremost experimenters with legalization, explicitly say that pot is only legal for people over 21. Likewise, Nancy Grace provided no proof that the new pot laws led to an increase in this form of child abuse, nor did she even say if the YouTube videos came from areas where pot was legal.

She did say that legalization will make pot more available, and easier to give to children, as reported by the Washington Post. But 2 Chainz raised the issue of alcohol, saying that there was surely more footage of bad parents giving their kids alcohol then the few YouTube videos that Nancy had found.

It is likely that alcohol has led to more cases of child abuse, and giving it to infants is highly frowned upon. Yet, it has been legal since 1933.

With no where else to go, and no other argument to make, Nancy Grace made her most confounding point yet, saying “are you telling me 2 Chainz, that my only two choices are: to get my child high on pot? or get it drunk on booze?”

The question was punctuated with the sounds of billions of brain cells dying across the country. Somehow in Nancy’s mind, marijuana legalization had become a mandate to give her children pot, perhaps as a Christmas present.

After a moment of confusion, 2 Chainz clarified his point, then clarified it again when Nancy repeated the same “argument.”

And as far as debating the pro and cons of marijuana legalization, that was pretty much it. Although the rapper tried his best, at one point describing his own long and ultimately wasteful encounter with police over a trace amount of pot, something that even Nancy agreed was a waste. But that wasn’t enough to end the debate over giving a 2-year-old pot, something that they continued to agree about.

Some other highlights included Nancy Grace and her guest supporter questioning 2 Chainz’s parenting and saying his rap lyrics gave a bad impression to young people.

Another fun fact that was repeated over and over again was that 2 Chainz is college educated with a 4.0 GPA.

In the end, 2 Chainz really was the victor. He may not have changed host’s mind, but his ability to not curse out, choke, or otherwise become enraged by Nancy Grace or her guest friend is a triumph worthy of respect.

[Image Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr]