Cannabis Quotes
Although only a minority of Americans advocated legalization of Marijuana at the time, Nixon brought his notorious anti-Semitic point of view to bear on a situation where the overwhelming majority of Marijuana legalizers were Christian. There were Jews as well – in particular some prominent Jews such as Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Milton Friedman who recommended against marijuana use, but argued against government making it illegal. This was a position held by most Libertarians, many liberals, and many conservatives like Friedman.
This quotation brought him much ridicule. See {585947}. Clinton was of the swing era where there were very negative public views about the morality of using illicit drugs and the character of those who might have used it. So Clinton felt constrained to emphasize that it was only marijuana, the most popular and benign of the illicit drugs, and to emphasize the fact that he did not enjoy it. His successor, however George W. Bush, had been an alcoholic and a heavy cocaine user, but learning from the Clinton error, would never comment about it other than to say that it was wrong and he urged all to avoid drugs.
