The President's in Tokyo, and the senior staffers think it might've been Thursday the whole time he was gone. In his absence, Surgeon General Millicent Griffith suggests that marijuana should be legalized, setting off a debate over consensual crimes between Josh and Donna. While CJ, Toby, Josh, and Sam attempt to master the time-space continuum and figure out when the President will be back, the meek middle Bartlet daughter, Ellie, calls Danny Concannon to express her support of the Surgeon General. Josh is sent to talk Dr. Griffith into resigning, but she refuses. Ellie is summoned to the White House by her father, just back from Japan, and they argue over the responsibilities of a doctor involved in politics. Bartlet decides not to accept Millicent Griffith's resignation. Elsewhere, Toby takes on a Senator threatening a third-party run while Sam handles a filmmaker who used the fact that Charlie declined to screen his movie as free advertising.

Starring:

ROB LOWE as Sam Seaborn
DULÉ HILL as Charlie Young
ALLISON JANNEY as C.J. Cregg
JANEL MOLONEY as Donna Moss
RICHARD SCHIFF as Toby Ziegler
JOHN SPENCER as Leo McGarry
BRADLEY WHITFORD as Josh Lyman
and MARTIN SHEEN as President Josiah Bartlet

Donna:  Yeah.

Josh:  Efficiency and professionalism, and we're out of here at nine o'clock on a Wednesday night.

Donna:  Doesn't hurt the President's in Tokyo.

Josh:  Yeah, well, there does seem to be a little less work to do when he's in a different hemisphere, but nonetheless.

Donna:  Efficiency and professionalism.

Josh:  With a healthy dollop of leadership skills.  The well-placed, well-worded memo.  Nobody goes off the reservation, everybody does their job.

CJ:  We bought two days.

Toby:  How?

Sam:  Plane ride.

Josh:  When does he leave?

CJ:  Seven p.m. Thursday.

Josh:  Tomorrow?

CJ:  Yes.

Josh:  Local time?

CJ:  Which local -- theirs or ours?

Toby:  It will be 7 p.m. Thursday in Japan when he leaves.

Josh:  And he lands here when?

Sam:  Okay, the flight is 13 hours long.

CJ:  This isn't happening.

Sam:  He's going to travel eastward from Tokyo, leaving at seven pm, so when he crosses the international dateline--

Toby:  He will have traveled back in time to what?

Sam:  Three a.m.

CJ:  Which puts him down in Washington at 6 p.m. Thursday.

Josh:  He's gonna land in Washington an hour before he took off?

Sam:  Yeah.

CJ:  I'm gonna crush him.

Sam:  CJ--

CJ:  This guy's trying to get a little free media by screwing with us!

Sam:  Look--

CJ:  I'm the enforcer, Sam.  I'm gonna crush him, I'm gonna make him cry, and then I'm gonna tell his momma about it.

Sam:  You're not going to make him cry.

CJ:  You wanna watch me make him cry?

Donna:  Josh, is there anything to suggest that there are a significant number of people who are inclined to smoke pot but don't because it's against the law?

Josh:  No.

Donna:  Then why do you think if it were decriminalized there would be a sudden stampede of people showing up to work stoned, dragging down the economy, and clearing supermarket aisles of Pringles and Twinkies?

Josh:  That's not a reason to make it legal.

Donna:  In a free society, you don't need a reason to make something legal, you need a reason to make something illegal.

Toby:  We're one of their people.

Andy:  Have you had an easy time convincing them of that since you announced the Commission?

Toby:  No.  But I bring you here, and we sit, and we have coffee, and we have Danish, in the hope that calmer and, dare I say, prettier heads prevail.

Andy:  Oh, I miss patronizing, sexist Toby.

Toby:  I was referring to myself.