Says the President: "I don't know what this says about the online audience," he says... "No, I don't think legalizing marijuana is a good way to grow our economy." Incidentally, a White House spokesman says that Obama was not given the questions that Jared Bernstein planned to ask him in advance... The full quote (courtesy of CBS's Brian Montropoli) is below:
"Can I just interrupt, Jared, before you ask the next question, just to say that, you know, we -- we took -- we took votes about which questions were going to be asked, and I think 3 million people voted or 3.5 million people voted. I have to say that there was one question that was voted on that ranked fairly high, and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and job creation.
And I don't know what this says about the online audience... (laughter)
... but I just want -- I don't want people to think that -- this was a fairly popular question. We want to make sure that it was answered.
The answer is, no, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy. So -- all right...
I wish Mexico would legalize pot so that some of our young people would move there and work for substandard wages. It might even cut down on border violence.
Here's the video of Obama answering the marijuana question (in case you missed it):
http://gotchamedia.blogspot.com/2009/03/obama-not-about-to-legalize-marijuana.html