Marijuana: Comic looking for politico to smoke with after Tom Tancredo welches on pot bet

Original post, 4:20 p.m. January 29: Last week, news broke that Tom Tancredo had promised to smoke pot with Adam Hartle, a comedian-filmmaker assembling a documentary about Amendment 64; the two had bet on A64's passage, and Tancredo lost.

Although the ex-Congressman put some conditions on firing up, he stressed that he didn't want to welch. But now he's done so anyhow -- and Hartle isn't happy.

As we've noted, Tancredo was virtually the only high-profile Republican politician to speak out in favor of Amendment 64, not due to his fondness for marijuana (he's never tried it), but because he sees the government telling people what they should and shouldn't ingest as antithetical to his conservative values.

Adam Hartle.

During the course of the campaign, Tancredo granted an interview to Hartle, and at the end of their chat, he told us last week, "We made a bet -- and even though I was supporting 64, I bet that it was going to go down. He said, 'I don't think it is.' And then he said, 'If it passes, will you smoke a joint with me?' And I said, 'Sure,' not thinking it was going to pass. But it did."

As such, Tancredo said he would pay off the bet" next time Florida-based Hartle is in Colorado -- but only under specific circumstances. In his words, "I will not promote it, because I don't think people should smoke. So I'll only take one puff, and I'm going to say, 'I don't think this is something you should do.' If you want to do it and you're an adult, you should have every right to do it. But it's not a benign substance; it's not something you can say, 'There's no possible harmful effect.' So I'm not going to be pushing it."

Despite these caveats, Tancredo's toking pledge continued to make news and provoke laughs. In the opening monologue to his most recent episode of HBO's Real Time, for example, Bill Maher joked that Tancredo -- whose name he mispronounced as "Tan-creed-oh" -- had better not make any bets about gay marriage. Meanwhile, Tancredo was pressured to retract the pledge by his wife, who was "pissed" about the promise, he told ABC News.

When Mrs. Tancredo talks, Tom listens. And because he said he was also concerned about the message he would send to his grandchildren by smoking, he reneged on the wager.

How is Hartle reacting? With great displeasure.

Continue for more about Adam Hartle's reaction to Tom Tancredo withdrawing his promise to smoke, including a video.