NO TO GOV. MEATHEAD – CONFIDENTIAL:

POLITICALLY active director Rob Reiner didn’t run for governor of California because he lost a very important house vote. His own. “We had a family meeting, three kids and I polled 40% in my own family,” Reiner (right) told us at the 21 Club premiere of his politically charge new film “LBJ” starring Woody Harrelson as President Lyndon Johnson. The conversation took place sometime between 2003 and 2011, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor. “So I figured if I can’t carry my own family...” One issue that really hits home with Reiner is the nation’s drug problem, which enveloped his 22-year-old son Charlie, who made 17 visits to rehab before getting clean. He was the inspiration behind Reiner’s 2015 film “Being Charlie,” which fittingly is about the drug-addicted son of a former actor who’s running for governor. Reiner thinks that decriminalizing all drug use would be a good start.

“Everything should be decriminalized, everything,” he said. “I mean usage, I don’t mean selling, that should be criminal. Not people who just use.”

Reiner watched with interest this week when President Trump’s nominee for drug czar, Tom Marino, withdrew his name from consideration amid reports that as a congressman he supported legislation that added to the nation’s opioid epidemic.

“When Trump announced he was going to have a war on opiate addiction, we still haven’t seen anything and they still haven’t done anything,” Reiner lamented. “There are certain things that can be done. One is to decriminalize it.”

According to Reiner, who was introduced to American households as hippie Michael (Meathead) Stivic in the 1970s sitcom “All in the Family,” his biggest concern growing up in the Johnson era was a foreign war.

“I was of draft age during the Vietnam War so to me, LBJ was an enemy,” he said. “I hated him because I was against the war and I thought I could get drafted, he could send me to my death.”

As time passed, Reiner developed a “greater appreciation” for Johnson.