WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama plans to take questions from YouTube viewers Thursday afternoon, and for the third time in as many years, the overwhelmingly most popular query involves the legalization of marijuana.
Of the top 100 most popular questions as rated by YouTube users, 99 are about the drug war or pot. Of the next one hundred, 99 are again about drug policy. Somehow, two questions about clean energy made their way into the top 200.
The pot questions don't stop there, but HuffPost stopped counting deep into the 200s, as the president is unlikely to answer all of them. If past history is any guide, he may not answer any of them.
A White House spokesman tells HuffPost that the president on Thursday will answer whatever questions YouTube puts before him. "A selection of top voted questions has been made to insure that as many of the most important questions as voted by the YouTube community will be asked," a YouTube spokesperson told HuffPost.
Obama did answer the question in 2009, addressing folks who asked if the president would consider legalizing marijuana to boost the economy and tax revenue.
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Ryan's follow-up article here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/27/obama-drug-legalization-debate_n_815074.html
"Drug legalization is an "entirely legitimate topic for debate," President Barack Obama said Thursday during his online YouTube town hall, in response to a question from a former deputy sheriff who has turned sour on the drug war.
In endorsing such a debate, Obama went further than any president has since the start of the war on drugs, which can be traced back at least to President Richard Nixon, but more realistically to the early 20th century, when the federal government began criminalizing drugs that had long been legal."