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Obama: Marijuana 'not very different' from cigarettes
Washington Examiner ^ | January 19, 2014 | Brian Hughes

Posted on 01/19/2014 11:07:30 AM PST by gusopol3

President Obama in an interview released Sunday said that using marijuana was not that different from smoking cigarettes nor any more dangerous than drinking alcohol.

“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 as part of an extensive profile published by the New Yorker on Sunday. “I don't think it is more dangerous than alcohol.”

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: alittleblow; bhodoj; blow; cocane; cokehead; crackhead; davidremnick; libertarians; marijuana; maryjane; maybealittlebloooo; medicalmarijuana; memebuilding; newyorker; obama; partisanmediashill; partisanmediashills; pothead; potheads; pufflist; snow; wod
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To: gusopol3

2ndDivisionVet: Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie ‘not very different’ from Barack Obama.


21 posted on 01/19/2014 11:37:17 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet (Jealousy is when you count someone else's blessings instead of your own.)
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To: expatguy

The quotes are all about him (as usual) so its probably real.


22 posted on 01/19/2014 11:38:47 AM PST by Starboard
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To: gusopol3

LOL, you don’t want to go there. Statistics for marijuana show it to be so far safer than alcohol or guns or even aspirin, that you’d be laughed out of the discussion.

But I will tell you where you can argue against marijuana - its effects on the brain development of children. Up to a certain point (late teens, I believe) it has a marked and measurable negative effect on all sorts of mental abilities, with associated negative emotional effects, from apathy to panic attacks.

After the brain reaches physical maturity, those negative effects drop off dramatically. But for kids and teens, marijuana is bad news.

On the other hand, for kids and teens, alcohol is bad news too - equally if not worse.

So there are deeper issues here than yes/no.


23 posted on 01/19/2014 11:40:04 AM PST by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
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To: expatguy

Once again, brilliance out of our Hahvahd magna, coolest dude, chuuum puffin’, smartest Prez EVAH!


24 posted on 01/19/2014 11:40:14 AM PST by matginzac
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To: christx30

Wha?


25 posted on 01/19/2014 11:42:04 AM PST by matginzac
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To: gusopol3

So add all the crap caused by dopers on the road, etc. with all the drinkers and we have Nirvana, right?
And I thought inhaling anything other than God-given clean air was not the lib tard, greeny-ac way?


26 posted on 01/19/2014 11:44:47 AM PST by matginzac
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To: gusopol3

Obvious follow up questions:

When did you stop smoking marijuana?

At what age was the last time you smoked it?


27 posted on 01/19/2014 11:45:21 AM PST by savedbygrace (But God!)
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To: Talisker

I’m kind of a clown, so I don’t mind being laughed at. So at what point does employability become a part of the rubric? If somebody on the job has a BAL and there’s an accident, they need a mighty fine lawyer. Yet they can be rip-roaring drunk the night before, it’s no issue. On the other hand, well, you know wht\at I’m going to say.


28 posted on 01/19/2014 11:51:18 AM PST by gusopol3
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To: gusopol3

That guy looks a bit like an older Jimi Hendrix .. had he not died of an overdose and suffocating on his own vomit. Ah drugs .. what a glorious life.


29 posted on 01/19/2014 11:52:06 AM PST by plain talk
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To: savedbygrace

I think he was “a kid” until a couple years after law school. shucks, he’s young at heart even now.


30 posted on 01/19/2014 11:52:51 AM PST by gusopol3
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To: Cowboy Bob
"Aren’t they banning e-cigarettes only because they confuse the cigarette nazis?"

Here's a thought: e-cigs should be manufactured in the shape of a joint (or whatever it is called nowadays)- fat at the center and skinny at the ends. Vapist must hold this between thumb and index. The vap scent must be appropriate also. Cigarette problem solved.

31 posted on 01/19/2014 11:57:38 AM PST by 1_Rain_Drop
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To: gusopol3

In 1916, even though there was a huge temperance movement that wanted alcohol banned, there was a general agreement that the FedGov had not been granted the power in the Constitution to do so; thus arose the Prohibition Constitutional Amendment process.

However, by 1936, while a Constitutional Amendment was being ratified to nullify Prohibition, Congress was passing laws to regulate and prohibit the manufacture and use of drugs without permission from the FDA ... with no outcry that the FedGov was not granted this power in the Constitution.

Twenty years ... one generation ... is all it took to loosen the chains that limited the FedGov power.


32 posted on 01/19/2014 11:58:00 AM PST by Mack the knife
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To: gusopol3

On this one issue, I agree with him. Marijuana should not be illegal. People are going to do it whatever it is or not. All we accomplish by keeping it illegal is filling up our for-profit prison systems with non-violent drug offenders, which makes them harder criminals. We get crap like asset forfeiture which means that cops can take your money or property without charging you with a crime. We lose liberties. It does WAY more harm than good.
If it’s legal, companies can still do piss tests and not hire pot heads. My fiance was nearly turned down for a job because they said she had alcohol in her system (She’s diabetic, and the ketones in her urine mimiced alcohol).
People can refuse to hire for any reason.


33 posted on 01/19/2014 12:01:58 PM PST by christx30 (Freedom above all.)
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To: gusopol3

Well that all comes under impairment. Whether alcohol, marijuana, or a police dispatcher who bought shoes that are too tight and as a result missed a call because they were rubbing their toes, an employee has a personal responsibility to be in a safe state of mind - and an employer has a responsibility to require it in a meaningful way. But that doesn’t mean that the particular thing that caused the impairment should be illegal per se.


34 posted on 01/19/2014 12:07:01 PM PST by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
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To: Talisker

I’d be the first to say smoking your last joint two weeks ago is unlikely to have any bearing on your mental acuity today. However, the test still is positive. I guess if somebody can afford to take a few days-weeks off intermittently, it’s ok for the President of the U.S. to tell him marijuana is no different from cigarettes.


35 posted on 01/19/2014 12:14:06 PM PST by gusopol3
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To: gusopol3

Who is he kidding?


36 posted on 01/19/2014 12:23:59 PM PST by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote; then find me a real conservative to vote for)
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To: gusopol3

Yep, the test would be positive after the high wore off. But certain alcohol indicators would be present after the drunk wore off, too. So it would be a matter of which test was used, and how, etc.

Obviously, things people ingest or do in order to escape the stress of daily life, are going to be antithetical to the duties of the very daily life they are trying to escape. So I’m not saying that misuse can occur. But if a more accepting approach to drugs was made, rather than kicking in doors and shooting people over them, then maybe better testing methods could not only be developed, but accepted by the population.

Fact of the matter is that alcohol poses a devastating counter-argument to the drug war. Few drugs are as damaging as alcohol, but it’s legal and common. That contradiction should have knocked any drug war laws clean out of the box. That it didn’t means that the legal problem is way bigger than the drug problem.


37 posted on 01/19/2014 12:30:28 PM PST by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
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To: Oliviaforever
He will destroy many teen lives, just like Clinton

Clinton's perversions set the state for the rise of gay marriage.

Kids were taught that sex was the only thing you could lie about in court, character didn't matter, and BJ's were not sex so could be practiced in abandon.

Clinton also was largely responsible for 9/11 because he weakened the military with DADT, appeasement of N. Korea, ignoring the '93 WTC bombing and the Somalia disaster though this is NEVER spoken about anymore.

38 posted on 01/19/2014 12:32:27 PM PST by what's up
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To: Cowboy Bob

Well it is pretty much verboten to smoke cigarettes anywhere in public today,so why the hell is the idiot President comparing the two,all I have heard for the past 50 years is how bad cigarettes are for you even just the second hand smoke ,now all 0f a sudden it’s,what’s the big deal?


39 posted on 01/19/2014 12:33:07 PM PST by ballplayer
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To: gusopol3

Pot smoking = OK.

Eating potatoes in school = Not OK.


40 posted on 01/19/2014 12:34:15 PM PST by what's up
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