Barack Obama Says Marijuana Less Dangerous Than Alcohol, But Don’t Expect Him to Do Anything Aobut It

Admitted former pot-smoker Barack Obama says
he doesn’t think marijuana is “very different” from cigarettes
(maybe he was doing it wrong, like Bill “I didn’t inhale” Clinton),
doesn’t like that “poor kids” get locked up for marijuana
possession, and said it was even
less dangerous than alcohol. But don’t expect his opinions to
translate to policy changes. He’s just the president after all.

From Slate:

The New Yorker’s David Remnick has
released his long-awaited profile of President Obama and, no
surprises here, it’s a long one. Clocking in at almost 17,000
words, the piece has several interesting insights, one of which
comes when Remnick asked the president about the legalization of
marijuana, and points out that Obama did not seem eager “to evolve
with any dispatch and get in front of the issue.” But Obama still
says some things that would have been unthinkable for a president
only a few years ago.

“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,” Obama said. “I don’t think it is more dangerous than
alcohol.” When Remnick pressed on whether marijuana is less
dangerous than alcohol, Obama thought about it for a while and said
it was less dangerous “in terms of its impact on the individual
consumer,” but emphasized that “it’s not something I encourage.”
The president expressed particular concern with the
disproportionate number of arrests for marijuana possession among
minorities. “Middle-class kids don’t get locked up for smoking pot,
and poor kids do,” he said, adding that individual users shouldn’t
be locked up “for long stretches of jail time.”

Given that Obama says he’s quit smoking cigarettes (which are
kinda like weed to him) but still drinks socially (which he says
could be more dangerous than pot) and has previously laughed off
the suggestion that marijuana legalization would be beneficial (and
continues to head a federal government waging a war on marijuana),
his comments shouldn’t be interpreted as much more than
off-the-cuff punditry.  Just hope it’s not part of the
emerging federal
moralism on alcohol use.

Read the whole New Yorker profile
here. More Reason on marijuana here, and Reason’s
October 2011 cover story on how despite the hype Barack Obama
turned out to be just another drug warrior here.

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