President Obama believes the legalization of marijuana in Washington and Colorado ultimately may open a Pandora’s Box and could lead to calls for cocaine, methamphetamine and other drugs to be sold freely and openly.
But more broadly, the president downplayed the dangers of pot, comparing it to cigarettes and arguing it is no more dangerous than booze.
“As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life,” Mr. Obama said in a lengthy interview with The New Yorker. “I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.”
Mr. Obama also took aim at the uneven arrest statistics regarding marijuana, saying poor and minority kids face much stiffer penalties for smoking pot than middle-class children.
The president said it’s important for the legalization of pot in Colorado and Washington “to go forward, because it’s important for a society not to have a situation in which a large portion of people have at one time or another broken the law and only a select few get punished.”
Still, Mr. Obama said turning weed into a legal product raises serious questions that the U.S. must confront.
“I also think that, when it comes to harder drugs, the harm done to the user is profound and the social costs are profound. And you do start getting into some difficult line-drawing issues,” Mr. Obama said. “If marijuana is fully legalized and at some point folks say, ‘Well, we can come up with a negotiated dose of cocaine that we can show is not any more harmful than vodka.’ Are we open to that? If somebody says, ‘We’ve got a finely calibrated dose of meth, it isn’t going to kill you or rot your teeth.’ Are we OK with that?”
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13 Responses
Yeah, and look how he turned out! If he’s any indication of what marijuana can do to you, it should be outlawed!
Dumb shoyta tipish ferd.
1. Alcohol, Tobacco, and the other drugs are probably are bad – but if you ban only oone type you look silly.
2. They are great sources of revenue.
3. If you allow discrimination against users (treating use as a matter of free choice, not an illness), and ban public consumption and public intoxication (DUI has already been rewritten to control non-alcoholic substances), it doesn’t impact non-users (especially if health and life insurance can charge higher rate to those using the substances).
4. Great potential source of tax revenue.
5. Reduces costs of social security and pensions (more substance abuse, shorter life span, less they have to pay out).
6. Let the Democrats run as the party of pot and perversion – it won’t help them politically since the potheads and perverts already are Democrats.
This Obama is ignorant of the facts. He is an M.D.=Mayven of Dr-k.
Akuperma you have a great idea but missed a big point Using drugs disqualifies you from getting health insurance and all cost must come from your pocket. This way they will either have drugs or health. If no health, it will keep the grave diggers union or the crematorium union extremely busy. Maybe we should have certain roads for drunk and pot head drivers
I think all the objective evidence (from countries like the Netherlands and others that have legalized sale for a few years) points to this substance being fairly safe.
It is definitely possible to say that it’s on par with alcohol and cigarettes, yes it would be better if people didn’t indulge (and overused), but the current situation in which organized crime is kept alive and large by the enormous illegal market and prisons overflowing with non-violent “possession criminals” can’t be what any country wants….
In the reactions above me I can only say I see a kneejerk to the unknown, unless you also want to outlaw alcohol and cigarettes your reactions are irrational.
I wounder if he has a bum box and danced in the streets of Chicago , also now I know why he always looks like he is in a fog and he has a dead look dose he also smoke khat like they do in Yemain
419 you are dumber then dumb. It’s not a bum box. It was a boom box. And any people had them and didn’t dance on
The street
Actually the president is wrong millions have died from alcohol but not one person ever die from pot. Pot is a lot safer than alcohol
#5- Health insurance companies are no longer allowed to discriminate against pre-existing conditions, such as substance abuse. How this will play out is questionable. If they decide to allow discrimination against substance abusers, including marijuana users, it will minmize the impact. I suspect the Democrats will insist that their addicted constituents get a free ride from health insuraners.
No. 8: Learn the difference between “then” and “than”, then decide who is dumb and who is dumber.
And, by the way, perhaps a “bum box” is a cardboard box that a homeless man or woman sleeps in.
Good point nfgo3 but #8 probably faked his way through english class just like he does with kollel.
for obama, in order to destroy society he must legalize both gay marriages and dope, then their will be no hope for America.
So far he is half successful.
Obama is a person who was cast out by society. Since he was raised by a white grandmother, yet was black, the children looked on him as strange. He never met his father and his mother was a weird lefty who deserted him for her strange adventures in foreign lands.
what kind of respect does a person who grew up like this have for the society that cast him out?
doesn’t take a degree in psychology to figure him out.