By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--January 21, 2014
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“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 in a lengthy profile in the current issue of the New Yorker magazine. “I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.”Here is the problem with this, and it has nothing to do with whether marijuana or alcohol is the more "dangerous" substance. Using either of them is stupid so that is an idiotic issue to even raise. The problem is that Obama completely fails when given an opportunity to tell those who actually respect what he says that there is a higher standard to which they can and should hold themselves. Look how he says he presented this issue to his daughters: " . . . it’s not something I encourage, and I’ve told my daughters I think it’s a bad idea, a waste of time, not very healthy." That's it? It's a "waste of time"? It's "not very healthy"? That's it?
Regardless of the legality question, young people - and I'm especially talking about urban and minority youth who are facing great economic challenges - don't smoke pot. It's stupid. It can do serious harm to you at a time in your life when that is the last thing you need. What you need to do to overcome the challenges in your life is to keep your mind clear and focused on doing the right things. In no way will smoking pot ever help you to do that. You should be looking to rise above the less admirable inclinations of the crowd you hang with, not to fall in with them. You should be learning every day about the good things you can and should be putting into your body and your mind so you can better yourself. There is no way marijuana will ever be on that list, so don't smoke it. And don't give me the excuse that alcohol is just as bad or worse. Even if that's true, so what? Is this the most you expect of yourself? To use the mind-altering substance that is "not quite as bad" as some other substance? Really? Because if that's all you expect of yourself, you'll never get anywhere in life and it won't be anyone's fault but yours.That is what he should have said. A strong statement like that would have gotten the attention of the young people who look up to him. It would have given some young, urban minorities who face long odds in life a better chance of beating those odds. But the best Barack Obama could come up with is that it's a "vice" and a "waste of time" and "not very healthy." Pathetic. Young people, the president of the United States is not a role model for you to follow.
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