The Weasel on Marijuana

Just like his opportunistic credit-hogging with gay rights victories, Obama is now on record as not being totally against it:

As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.

Wait, did the POTUS just make his personal opinion known on a matter that is no longer all that controversial given how polls show an increasing majority of people favoring legalization?

Having said all that, those who argue that legalizing marijuana is a panacea and it solves all these social problems I think are probably overstating the case. There is a lot of hair on that policy. And the experiment that’s going to be taking place in Colorado and Washington is going to be, I think, a challenge.

Was alcohol legalized because it was a panacea?