Obama will be the 3rd President in a row that used drugs, and he is the first to admit it....

[ballsalicious]

...as a recovering Alcoholic and Drug User (12 years clean and sober this Friday), the fact that Obama is open about his past drug and alcohol use... means the world to me. Now that we know he is our nominee, I am so looking forward to him being my President.

(by the way, this feels good not to have to post this in GDP now) :patriot:

[The Diest]

1. I believe the drug and alcohol use mean that he is

normal. Or at least human.

[JI7]

2. Bush doesn't admit it because he is addicted and is still using

[jojo54]

3. Congrats on the 12 years.

I'm damned glad he's admitted using. It's about time we have a politician that's being honest.

[ballsalicious]

7. thanks on the congrats n/t

[bamacrat]

4. I don't think there will be a president who hasn't from now on.

Weed is a given, every president will probably have tried the heavenly herb atleast once.

[ballsalicious]

8. agreed - my thoughts exactly BO is breaking the lie mold at least

[LeftyMom]

10. Not really a given.

I never have used it, I know a few other people who haven't, for whatever reason. I'm totally in favor of legalization, I just have no personal interest in trying it. (The short answer why? My Mom is in recovery, and when I was younger I knew she'd flip the hell out. It wasn't not worth the family drama.)

The weird thing is that drug use is widely accepted enough, that there's an assumption that anybody under 50 who denies it is probably lying. Of course a certain percentage of people just choose not to try certain things, for their own reasons, and that's perfectly legitimate.

So I wouldn't assume any future president will have smoked pot or used harder drugs.

[Hekate]

12. Right you are, from another one

:hi:

I voted to legalize it though -- the "war on drugs" as related to pot is stupid and inhumane and doesn't work any better than Prohibition did for alcohol. All it does is drive otherwise law-abiding citizens into the company of criminals and then make them criminals too. What a waste.

Hekate

[WindRiverMan]

15. I never did it either

Mostly because I did lots of sports in high school and college, and random drug testing was around. Now certianly there were guys who played the risk game, but when you are poor, have a schoalrship, and one your one way out is athletics scholarship, smoking dope seemed stupid to me.


Once I was out of college I went to work for a governmetn agency that also does random drug testing.

In all of these years though I think I have been asked to pee in a cup maybe four times.

Still not worth risking my livlihood.

[stillcool]

5. Congrats, and Happy Birthday!

I'm a friend of Bill's too. I can't believe anyone who was alive in the 70's & 80's didn't do a toot, or a toke, and I like having a person as a President.

[ballsalicious]

11. thanks for the congrats...

[jmunger]

6. typical progression

As with everything else in politics, a radical new way of thinking started as a big brouhaha (Clinton) and evolved over a generation or two into no big deal (Obama). It was the same thing with women's suffrage, income tax, interracial marriage, dollar-a-gallon gas, gay rights, etc, etc. People get used to stuff.

Maybe one day we'll have an admitted current user as Pres. :D

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. You know what I want to see?

this Bullshit war to end

If it does not... look at Mexico... we are not that far from that internal war here.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

13. Only the third?

NT

[LeftishBrit]

delete (dupe)

[LeftishBrit]

14. Your elected president Gore did admit to having used marijuana in the past...

And didn't Clinton admit that he smoked it 'but didn't inhale'?

Certainly Bush 'can't remember' if he used cocaine, which probably means he used so much that he can't remember anything at all!

Incidentally, it is said that Good Queen Victoria was prescribed cannabis to control her period pains: an early example of the medical use of the drug.

[raccoon]

16. Probably there were many more in the past who used and we didn't know it.

I'm referring to using prescription drugs inappropriately as well as using street drugs.