(LifeSiteNews) — Outspoken marijuana advocate Woody Harrelson has the mainstream media up in arms after cracking a joke on Saturday Night Live this past weekend about Big Pharma’s tyrannical control over ordinary Americans.
The 61-year-old actor was hosting the left-wing program for the fifth time, putting him in an exclusive club. Near the end of his nearly seven-minute monologue, which predictably included references to smoking pot and drinking alcohol, Harrelson took a clever jab at the medical establishment.
The former Cheers and Hunger Games star began by jokingly telling the audience that the last time he hosted the show in 2019, he wandered off, stoned, into New York’s Central Park to read “the craziest [movie] script” ever. After reclining on a tree, he started to peruse the document.
“So the movie goes like this: The biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media and all the politicians and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes. And people can only come out if they take the cartel’s drugs and keep taking them over and over.”
“I threw the script away,” Harrelson said, in a punch line that received nary a laugh. “I mean, who was going to believe that crazy idea? Being forced to do drugs? I do that voluntarily all day.” A small chuckle from the audience ensued.
Harrelson is known for having a unique political outlook. A self-described “anarchist” who has compared politics with “synchronized swimming,” he once dined with Donald Trump in the early 2000s at the behest of Green Party politician Jesse Ventura. He also went to college at Hanover with Mike Pence, who helped him craft a sermon one time. In 2021, he met with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Washington, D.C. while filming a movie about the Watergate heist.
Harrelson’s remarks sparked strong backlash from liberal outlets, including The Washington Post and others, who accused him of touting COVID-19 “conspiracy theories,” thereby confirming his point about “the media” being controlled by Big Pharma.
Woody Harrelson: “The biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media…”
Media: pic.twitter.com/6qGOLpr6AQ
— kanekoa.substack.com (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 26, 2023
On the other hand, individuals like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. applauded Harrelson’s comedic approach, tweeting that the “hypnotized audience” missed the joke.
Woody Harrelson ribs Pfizer + Moderna brilliantly on @nbcsnl. Hypnotized audience misses the joke. pic.twitter.com/3Sm8NvF5qM
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) February 26, 2023
This is not the first time Harrelson has come out against the medical industrial complex. During a previous appearance on liberal comedian Bill Maher’s podcast, he said “the last people I would trust with my health is Big Pharma and Big Government, because neither one of those strike me as caring entities … they’re all about profit.”
At the outset of his monologue Saturday, Harrelson, who was raised in a religious home but has since abandoned his faith, quasi-joked that, “like a lot of people, I have the devil on one shoulder and on the other shoulder I have a larger, more frightening devil. And there’s a battle going on in [my head].”
“I’m just saying I am many different things — anarchist, Marxist, ethical hedonist, non-discriminatory empath, epistemologist deconstructionist, Texan.”