Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though."-Obama

[The Straight Story]

"I had learned not to care," he wrote. "I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though. ..."

"Blow" is a street name for cocaine. "Smack" is slang for heroin.

"Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man," Obama wrote. "Except the highs hadn't been about that, me trying to prove what a down brother I was. Not by then, anyway. I got high for just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory. I had discovered that it didn't make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmate's sparkling new van, or in the dorm room of some brother you'd met down at the gym, or on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school and now spent most of their time looking for an excuse to brawl. ... You might just be bored, or alone. Everybody was welcome into the club of disaffection."

Obama last week apologized for not telling me earlier about his past as portrayed in the book. He said I had caught him off guard with the drug question and that, at the time, he had not wanted to overshadow his story of that day - his endorsement by the Illinois Federation of Teachers.

http://www.ilsenate.com/cache.asp?LinkID=167

Jesus wouldn't vote Obama, and now we see he was a druggie once. IT'S ALL OVER!!! AHHHHHHH!!!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2629286

It's easy to find negative things about a candidate. But one can also find the good:
Obama's Stand on Issues -
http://www.ilsenate.com/cache.asp?LinkID=82

Maybe if we posted something positive and negative about a candidate in the same threads we might learn something about our own candidate and realize the others aren't boogeymen (or boogeywomen).

We will have to support one in the GE, and we will be the ones staving off the negative attacks. Might be good to get all the good we can on each candidate now cause we will need it :)

Peace out.

[AzDar]

1. I have no problem with Obama being open about drugs; makes me respect

him more, actually, for his honesty.
Now, if we could just pin him down on a few policy specifics....;-)

[mdmc]

2. yes

I won't be supporting pro drug warriors.

[helderheid]

6. yep! Drugs smugs. Atleast he didn't try to get away with the "I didn't inhale" BS!

:hi:

[Botany]

3. None Story .....

.... He went on to become editor of the Harvard Law Review.

He partied when he was young and still became a good man and
gifted speaker ..... guess that flies into the face of the "DARE and
the "just say no" keeping our drug policies in the dark ages multi-
billion dollar industry."

[Warren DeMontague]

4. All the more reason that the drug war is a waste and a sham.

Legalize, regulate and tax pot, treat hard drug addiction as a health issue and not a law enforcment one. Stop pissing away $40 Billion a year on the drug war. Some people have problems with drugs, just like some have problems with alcohol- but prohibition doesn't solve anything.

Enough, already.

[Uncle Joe]

7. I agree. n/t

[OzarkDem]

5. We'll be hearing a lot of this if Obama gets the nomination

but not until then.

[stellanoir]

8. Find me one person who has been alleged to be entirely pure under the age of

60 and I'll show you a person who was incredibly sheltered, outrageously lucky and/or limited, had a respiratory tract lacking on the intake, or someone who's chronology has been completely sanitized by k-k-karl and gonzolaws.

This is so a non issue.

This quotation however speaks volumes of his multiculturalism, youthful folly, maturity, perceptiveness, honesty, and acquired wisdom.

". . .I had discovered that it didn't make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmate's sparkling new van, or in the dorm room of some brother you'd met down at the gym, or on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school and now spent most of their time looking for an excuse to brawl. ... You might just be bored, or alone. Everybody was welcome into the club of disaffection. . ."

[monmouth]

9. My eldest son is the same age as Barack, (I saw the H.S. photo and

had a flashback)...Son says anyone, anyone of his age group who says they didn't either drink to get drunk, smoke weed or expriement with the other stuff is lying through their teeth. Obama was very smart coming up and out with this... It's such a non-story and should be treated as such down the road when the swifters come along. Non-story, generational thing, and don't think the Repug kids didn't try it also..