Pot smokers exhaled a sigh of relief last Friday when the second major Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, admitted that he had not only smoked marijuana when he was young but that he inhaled, saying “that was the point.”
Those who occasionally partake in recreational drugs can rest assured knowing that one of the most respected, well-presented, well-spoken, intelligent candidates not only occasionally smoked marijuana, but “did some blow,” according to an article in The New York Times that quoted his biography.
As reported in the article, the only reason he hadn’t tried heroin was because he didn’t trust the dealer who was selling it to him.
No wonder his presidential campaign so strongly resonates with the under-25 crowd: He is attractive, successful, has tried drugs and is candid about his lifestyle when he was younger.
While the common perception of potheads is often marked by unintelligence, a lack of industriousness and motivation, and a general deficiency of ambition, the Illinois senator is not only redeeming those who occasionally experiment with recreational drugs, but is doing something rarely associated with politicians. He is being honest.
Rather than take a middle-of-the-road, “I-toked-but-didn’t-inhale” stance, or a hard line, drugs-are-the-product-of-Satan position, Obama is showing in the truest form that he is human, prone to curiosity, experimentation and err.
This should be especially appealing to college students.
Despite the general view depicted in public service announcements, those who occasionally (or even habitually) use drugs are not forever bound to a sofa, endlessly watching TV, eating Hot Pockets, with a forever tarnished reputation as a drain on society, but can do something universally admired in society, like become president.
Obama embodies that image.
He gives people the chance to dream that, although their parents, school counselors and coaches told them that if they ever did drugs they would spend the rest of their lives regretting it, they, too, might be able to go to Harvard Law, become a community organizer, respected professor, lawyer and maybe, one day, president of the United States.
Many kids, when they’re young, imagine becoming president – largely because it is one of the most respected, admired and powerful positions in the country. Most eventually give up that dream because of some slight youthful slip-up.
Dreams of one day becoming president fell by the wayside due to grades that were not as good as they should have been, experimentation with drugs, taking time off school, or some other deviation from the norm, whether slight or large.
Now, with an open former pot smoker ranking second in the Democratic polls, drug experimentation may someday be a presidential qualification – or maybe not. But certainly leading a conventional safe life is no longer expected from presidential candidates and gives college students at non-Ivy League universities a shred of hope of one day achieving greatness.
Lauren Williams is a senior journalism and political science major, the investigations editor and a weekly columnist for the Daily Forty-Niner.
