NJ’s funniest lawyer and a judge weigh in on cops getting high on their day off

He's a New Jersey state senator by day but at night, Jon Bramnick is known as "New Jersey's Funniest Lawyer" and this Saturday night he will be appearing at Catch A Rising Star in the Princeton Hyatt Regency with Vince August, a Municipal Court judge who gave up the bench to perform standup.

Bramnick and August were guests on my New Jersey 101.5 radio show and the controversial subject of "Now that we have legalized recreational marijuana, should New Jersey police be able to get high on their day off?"

You can listen On-Demand starting at 0:59:30:

"This is a new one because how do you tell someone you can't do something that's legal?" says August. "We're saying it's marijuana because it stays in your blood system longer, unlike alcohol, but it doesn't necessarily impair you."

August, who tours with Trevor Noah, continued with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

"Here's the problem with cops getting high. They already eat a lot of donuts as it is. Do we really want these guys really pushing that aspect of their life to the next level?"

"What I don't understand," says Bramnick, "is if they're allowed to do alcohol and get as drunk as they want on Saturday night. How do you argue that they shouldn't be doing marijuana, which is now legal? I understand that there are some requests for that but I just don't get it. I don't really understand what the difference is between them drinking on Saturday night or smoking marijuana I'm lost on this."

"The bigger problem here," says August, "is getting cops that are DRE's (drug recognition experts) in marijuana because this is a new thing. It's one thing with alcohol, you can pretty much tell when someone's drunk. But with pot, you're going to have to get these guys all kinds of training. Now anybody can pull somebody over for DWI but with marijuana, these guys are all going to have to get specialized training."

August put it into perspective

"A lot of people that I know, I think they're stoned half the time anyway. And they're not. They're just stupid. So we gotta be careful with this thing."

August then put the tongue back in cheek.

"If we're going to have cops, stoned, with guns. We're going to have guys pulling over dragons, we're going to have guys pulling over dinosaurs. We can't have cops imagining or hallucinating while they're driving the car pulling over imaginary things. We did that with kids a couple of years ago with Pokémon on their phones chasing imaginary things in the park. Cope are going to be doing Pokémon only they're going to be stoned off their ass."

For tickets to see Jon Bramnick and Vince August with a Q&A afterwards, click here.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Steve Trevelise only. Follow him on Twitter @realstevetrev.

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