Marijuana Policy Project

After 13 years in television and nearly 2,600 shows, Montel Williams wants to meet you. More though, he just wants you to meet him.

Aside from what you know him as: television host, military man, the face of Multiple Sclerosis—now, you can add political activist to his resume.

"I think that we have been dead wrong about something for about 85 years in this country. And what I think we're dead wrong about is medical marijuana," Williams said.

Montel has long been known for speaking out against drugs, but now he is pleading a case for one. Every day he takes 39 pills, mostly pain killers. But even with those pain killers, he said none work quite as well to ease his constant pain as marijuana, which he wants you to understand why. He said to think of him as your brother.

"Your younger sibling has an illness, and they're in pain all day, and a doctor says to you the only thing that will stop their pain is medicinal marijuana. Now you tell me what you're going to do," Williams said.

And so on Tuesday, Mr. Williams was not in New York City preparing for his show with an audience in the millions. Instead, he was in Albany, preparing for his future before a significantly smaller audience, but no less important to him.

The people: New York's elected officials in Albany, in which 44 of them are sponsoring legislation that would legalize the use of medicinal marijuana. It is an issue that has two sides, and a lot of gray area. But some said, why not at least look?

Lynette Vincent of Albany said, "For people with cancer, they say it's good for chemotherapy patients, so they probably should take a look at it to see if there's any truth to what people are saying."

Williams said, "Listen to the will of the people. And the will of the people is trying to say to you, I got family members who are suffering. Governor, I am."