F*ck everything else, the citizens of the United States of America want answers about when that “yah-mean” is about to be legalized: 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. “Can I just interrupt, Jared, before you ask the next question, just to say that we — we took votes about which questions were going to be asked and I think 3 million people voted,” he said to aide Jared Bernstein. “I have to say that there was one question that was voted on that ranked fairly high and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy — (laughter) — and job creation. And I don’t know what this says about the online audience — (laughter) — but I just want — I don’t want people to think that — this was a fairly popular question; we want to make sure that it was answered. The answer is, no, I don’t think that is a good strategy — (laughter) — to grow our economy in 2009.” That answer tortured legalization backers as much as being ignored, if this year’s questions are an indication. Many of them knock the president for laughing at their issue. SMH. Source
