Obama: I Tried Drugs As a Teen

Yahoo ^

[Sub-Driver]

Obama: I Tried Drugs As a Teen

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer 15 minutes ago

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama on Tuesday told high school students that when he was their age he was hardly a model student, experimenting with illegal drugs and drinking alcohol.

Obama stopped by a study hall at Manchester Central High School and answered students' questions about the war in Iraq and his education plan. But when an adult asked about his time as a student, Obama spoke bluntly.

"I will confess to you, I was kind of a goof-off in high school. My Mom reminds me of that," said Obama, an Illinois Democrat who grew up in Hawaii

"You know, I made some bad decisions that I've actually written about. You know, got into drinking. I experimented with drugs," he said. "There was a whole stretch of time that I didn't really apply myself a lot. It wasn't until I got out of high school and went to college that I started realizing, 'Man, I wasted a lot of time.'"

Obama has written about his drug use in his memoir, "Dreams from My Father."

"Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final fatal role of the young would be black man," Obama wrote. Mostly he smoked marijuana and drank alcohol, Obama wrote, but occasionally he would snort cocaine when he could afford it.

Drugs, Obama wrote, were a way he "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."

[toddlintown]

Old news and not “The Big Story” that the L.A. Times is holding back on.

[iowamark]

You’re still wasting time, Hussein.

[toddlintown]

It’s in his book and published awhile ago. Preemptive.

[Red_Devil 232]

"... his mother has been dead for 12 years.

Unless she was not his real Mom!??? A slip up? Maybe his whole life history is all made up.

[guinnessman]

Yeah that’s it.

He asked her. She said “no”, and then he apologized for asking her.

[petitfour]

That’s funny because our daughter (freshman) remarked yesterday that she was one of three in her biology class who does not do drugs.

I’ve never done drugs nor been drunk. I never had the desire to do so. I had three older siblings who were fine examples of what not to do in life. One is still a loser. The second saw the error of his ways and joined the military. The third is rather successful, so I can’t say his drinking held him back.

When I was in high school, there were a lot of experimenters around me. Looking back, I was probably one of a small handful who never tried drugs. I think we were all the youngest children in our families.

[toddlintown]

Nobody seems to be reading the article. This all came out in his book, published in January, 2007

[Jersey Republican Biker Chick]

Wow...cool.

[Sopater]

Absolutely wrong thing to say to teenagers. To the adult mind it would come out as “don’t repeat my mistake.” To the teenager, it means “blah, blah, I did so you can too.” Seriously.

You've got a great point. Teenagers will hear that and think, "Obama did it and he turned out alright". However, I also believe in telling teenagers the truth about prior drug use. Fist-hand experience can be good to impart to teenagers, but the focus has to be on the struggles that come with trying to recover life after wasting it on drug use, and having to live with some of the ongoing consequences of bad decisions. I didn't see Obama say anything about that. He didn't mention any adverse consequences besides "wasted time".

[Aquinasfan]

Is he trying to say that he Super Fly?

"He's got a plan to stick it to The Man!"

"I know it's a rotten game, " opines Eddie, Priest's friend and business partner. "But it's the only one the man left us to play."
--Barak "Superfly" Obama.

[Old Professer]

Just making sure that he lets them know he’s black; I wonder if his mother ever reminds him of the fact she’s white when he goes around posing to people.

[Dan(9698)]

OK, and who hasnt?

I didn't.

[Holicheese]

Now wait a minute. I thought W was the only coke head ever. That all he did was coke and more coke and then chased co-eds around.
Obama gets a pass because he is half black?
Let me tell you something about coke, noone has only done it once.

[Holicheese]

“Did Hillary smoke pot in college?”
The big question, what did John Edwards smoke when he was in college?

[Miss Didi]

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

That's some paper route Obama had.

[adopt4Christ]

I didn’t either. Neither did many of my friends, my sister, and both my parents. Neither have my three nieces (college age).

Guess the “who hasn’t” doesn’t fly for a lot of us.

Obama should have never tried to “get down on their level” like this. He might think he’s gaining the young, hip college age vote, but he just lost all of us parents, who are a much greater voter group than the Generation X or Y or whatever they call themselves.

[Berlin_Freeper]

I did enough enough drugs in H.S. to put down a herd of elephants.

But I never thought I should be elected President.

And I *DAMN SURE* wouldn’t vote for President any of the jokers that I was doing drugs with!!

What makes Obama so special?

[Rita Hayworth]

I never did. There was never any respect for those who did.

[trublu]

“Nobody seems to be reading the article. This all came out in his book, published in January, 2007”

Guilty. Mea culpa.