Obama: Weed No Worse Than Alcohol, as Polling Shows Support for Legalization Growing

While the NFL ruled the television and headlines over the weekend buried in news feeds throughout the country, like a seed seeking halogen lighting were President Obama’s published comments about marijuana.

Now that football is off the scanner, so to speak, the president’s comments have resulted in dozens of published reports about the drug known as weed.

“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. I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol,” Obama told The New Yorker in a lengthy piece covering a myriad of topics.

The president added, after writer David Remnick repeatly asked if weed was “less dangerous” that using pot was not something he encouraged and shared those views with his daughters since he thinks it’s a “waste of time.”

The legalization of weed in Colorado and Washington in addition to a number of public polls illustrating legalization of the schedule I drug has grown in recent years.

According to a Gallup Poll published in October of 2013, 58 percent of Americans favor legalizing pot. The poll reports that it’s a 10 point jump from polling data released in 2012.

Moreover, according to the report more than 1/3 of American’s have admitted trying “trees” which is cited as probable predictor for the societal change on the legalization issue.

One interesting number, from the report, worth citing is the percentage growth among registered independents from 2012 to 2013. Gaining a 12 percent jump among that subgroup of self identified independents from 50 percent to 62 percent which is attributed for the overall change in national opinion.

There were even slight gains for legalization among Republicans and Democrats, according to the report published last fall.

Meanwhile, Obama said about legalization: “It’s important for it to go forward because it’s important for society not to have a situation in which a large part of people have at one time or another broken the law and only a select few get punished.”

The president said that those who see legalization as a “social panacea” for a number of societal problems is “overstating the case,” and looks to what is taking place in Colorado and Washington as challenge in terms of the experiment taking going on now.

Closer to home, only days ago two Pennsylvania State Senators have co-sponsored a bill to legalize medical marijuana in Pennsylvania.  Sen. Daylin Leach (D-Montco) and Sen. Mike Folmer  (R -Lebanon) brought out the measure last week.

State Rep Mark Cohen (Philadelphia) , interviewed by this writer, in spring of 2010 for WHIP Temple University Student Run Radio has offered similar measures in the past.

Gov. Tom Corbett said  he will not pass any bill until the FDA approves the use of medical marijuana.

The only group age group, according to Gallup, where there were no gains made in support of legalization were seniors the report noted.

A comparative study carried out by the World Health Organization in 1995 says, “existing patterns of use, cannabis poses a much less serious public health problem than is currently posed by alcohol and tobacco in Western societies. This is no cause for complacency, however, as the public health significance of alcohol and tobacco are major, and the public health significance of cannabis could increase if the prevalence of its heavy daily use were to approach that of heavy alcohol use among young adults, or the prevalence of daily cigarette smoking among adults.”

The Obama administration has maintained  the government’s firm opposition to legalizing the drug. In late August, however,  Deputy Attorney General James Cole announced the Justice Department would not challenge the legality of Colorado’s and Washington’s referendums, provided that those states maintain strict rules regarding the drug’s sale and distribution.