Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 25
Like Tree2Likes

Thread: Jeb Bush admits toking at private prep school: 'I smoked marijuana

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

  1. #1
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    PARADISE (San Diego)
    Posts
    99,040

    Jeb Bush admits toking at private prep school: 'I smoked marijuana

    Jeb Bush admits toking at private prep school: 'I smoked marijuana when I was at Andover'


    • 'It was pretty common,' the GOP presidential front-runner said
    • Former pot smokers no longer raise eyebrows in presidential election circles after Barack Obama's famous 'choom gang' admissions
    • Bill Clinton broached the subject, improbably insisting that he tried marijuana but 'didn't inhale' (He reportedly preferred pot brownies)
    • Several of America's founding fathers smoked pot, including James Madison and James Monroe, and many others farmed hemp
    • Thomas Jefferson is said to have smuggled hashish seeds into the US


    By DAVID MARTOSKO, US POLITICAL EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

    PUBLISHED: 16:54 EST, 30 January 2015 | UPDATED: 17:36 EST, 30 January 2015
    1View comments

    Jeb Bush, the newest front-runner among Republicans seeking their party's 2016 presidential nomination, smoked marijuana in high school – an activity he describes as 'pretty common' at the tony Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.

    He told The Boston Globe in an interview published ahead of Sunday's edition that 'I drank alcohol and I smoked marijuana when I was at Andover.'


    Both activities were strictly forbidden at the time – and still are – and could have gotten him expelled.


    But 'it was pretty common,' he insisted.


    News reports of Jeb's past pot smoking date back to at least 1998, but his frank admission is new.



    +5

    UP IN SMOKE: Jeb Bush (2nd from right, in the background) was 17 when this photo was taken as his father the future presidient conceded the Texas governor's race to future vice presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen



    +5

    GETS YOU RIGHT HERE: Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and a front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, experimented with marijuana at his prep school in Massachusetts



    +5

    'THAT WAS THE POINT': Barack Obama told an interviewer in 2008 that he definitely inhaled when he smoked pot, and reminisced about his pothead friends, the infamous 'Choom Gang'

    It's common for presidential hopefuls to 'dump' unflattering news about themselves early in election cycles, in the hope that it will be considered 'old news' by the time heir opponents gear up opposition-research activities.

    The St. Petersburg Times in Bush's home state of Florida profiled him in October 1998 when he was the state's commerce secretary.


    'The academics and the competitiveness' at Andover 'jolted him,' the Times reported. 'He nearly flunked his first year.'


    'He began to experiment with drugs, smoking marijuana on more than one occasion and drinking alcohol.'


    Bush all but admitted the reporting was spot-on at the time.

    'I still adhere to the belief that there should be a statute of limitations on behavior,' he said. 'There's got to be some tolerance for our imperfections. I'm imperfect. I was more imperfect when I was young.'

    RELATED ARTICLES





    Five years later, when he was nearing the end of his first term as Florida's governor, the Washington Post treated Bush's marijuana-smoking days as anything but a bombshell.

    'Jeb struggled with his course work' at Andover, the Post reported in February 2003. He 'missed Texas and experimented with marijuana.'


    POT-SMOKERS IN THE 2016 FIELD


    Several of the potential 2016 Republican presidential candidates have admitted smoking pot in the past:
    Aside from Jeb Bush, there are at least four.

    Squeaky-clean moral crusader Rick Santorum, a former Senator from Pennsylvania, awkwardly admitted in 2011 that 'when I was in college ... I smoked pot and that was something that I did when I was in college … It was something that I’m not proud of, but I did.'


    'I did and I admitted it,' Santorum added. 'I would encourage people not to do so. It was not all it’s made up to be.'


    Newt Gingrich said in 1995 when he was Speaker of the House that smoking pot 'was a sign we were alive and in graduate school in that era.'


    Former New York Governor George Pataki put his pot experimentation on the record during his first campaign for the office in 1994.


    And Sarah Palin, the GOP's vice presidential nominee in 2008, told the Anchorage Daily News two years earlier during her Alaska governorship that she smoked pot in her pre-politics days.


    'I can't claim a Bill Clinton and say that I never inhaled,' she said.


    College friends of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul have said he joined them in the occasional toke, but he hasn't admitted it.


    'Randy smoked pot, [and] he made fun of Baptists,' a former cohort from Paul's Baylor University secret society, the NoZe Brotherhood, said in 2010.



    Former Preident George H.W. Bush, Jeb's father, wrote in 1971 that 'Jebby is going to need some help I am sure.'

    'He is a free and independent spirit and I don't want him to get totally out of touch with the family.'


    The idea of an American president with THC in his history is nothing new.


    President Barack Obama famously smoked weed in his youth as part of a group of friends he affectionately called the 'Choom Gang.'


    Bill Clinton, asked about his pot-smoking past during the 1992 presidiential campaign, admitted that 'when I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t inhale and never tried it again.'


    The late Christopher Hitchens, who attended Oxford University with Clinton during the future president's Rhodes Scholar year, claimed later that Clinton was partial to pot brownies instead.


    Obama, by contrast, made no bones about enjoying a good toke.


    'When I was a kid, I inhaled, frequently,' he said in 2008. 'That was the point.'


    President George W. Bush, Jeb's older brother, reportedly experimented with cocaine during his youth.


    He never explicitly admitted smoking marijuana, although he hinted at it in discussions with his biographer Douglas Wead.


    'I wouldn't answer the marijuana questions,' the 43rd president recalled. 'You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried.'


    President John F. Kennedy tried marijuana for chronic back pain, according to the book 'John F. Kennedy: A Biography,' which drew its account from former Washington Post executive Jim Truitt.


    'On the evening of July 16, 1962, according to Jim Truitt, Kennedy and Mary Meyer smoked marijuana together.'


    Meyer was reportedly one of Kennedy's mistresses.



    +5

    'It was pretty common,' Jeb Bush said of his pot-smoking days in prep school



    +5

    FIELDS OF DREAMS: James Madison, revered as the 'Father of the Constitution,' credited some of his ideas to mental clarity brought on by smoking marijuana

    'The president smoked three of the six joints Mary brought to him,' according to the book. 'At first he felt no effects. Then he closed his eyes and refused a fourth joint. "Suppose the Russians did something now," he said.'

    Several of America's founding fathers smoked the drug, according to the pot-advocacy magazine High Times.


    In the late eighteenth and early ninetenth centuries, the hemp plant that yields marijuana was grown widely in the New World for non-recreational purposes including fibers and oil.


    George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison all cultivated hemp.


    Madison, revered as the 'Father of the Constitution,' credited some of his ideas to mental clarity brought on by smoking hemp.


    Presidents Zachary Taylor and Andrew Jackson both wrote letters that mentioned smoking marijuana with American troops during their time in battle.


    James Monroe openly smoked hashish during his years as U.S. Ambassador to France and, according to one biographer, kept up the habit until he died at age 73.


    And Thomas Jefferson, High Times claims, smuggled hemp seeds from China that were 'known for their potency.'


    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz3QLbMpHev

    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


    Sign in and post comments here.

    Please support our fight against illegal immigration by joining ALIPAC's email alerts here https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  2. #2
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Posts
    55,883
    End the War on Drugs, legalize, regulate, educate and tax recreational drug use. Make it a domestic industry only owned and operated by US citizens only, to avoid any international complications, and then stop worrying about it. Pass the FairTax so we can tax the consumer drug sales, set aside a portion of those taxes that only drug users pay to provide free rehab on demand to anyone who wants or needs it and pay for education to inform the public about the risks and consequences of using drugs..
    A Nation Without Borders Is Not A Nation - Ronald Reagan
    Save America, Deport Congress! - Judy

    Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts at https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  3. #3
    MW
    MW is offline
    Senior Member MW's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    North Carolina
    Posts
    25,717
    Quote Originally Posted by Judy View Post
    End the War on Drugs, legalize, regulate, educate and tax recreational drug use. Make it a domestic industry only owned and operated by US citizens only, to avoid any international complications, and then stop worrying about it. Pass the FairTax so we can tax the consumer drug sales, set aside a portion of those taxes that only drug users pay to provide free rehab on demand to anyone who wants or needs it and pay for education to inform the public about the risks and consequences of using drugs..
    Wow, at 56 years of age, I must really be out of touch. I'm sorry, but I just don't understand where you're coming from with this. First you say, let's legalize drugs even though we know they are are bad for you. Then you go on to say, let's tax them and then take a portion of the taxes so we can maybe improve the lives we've destroyed with rehab and drug education.

    Look, you admitted that recreational drug use was a bad thing or you wouldn't be talking about rehab and education in the same paragraph as legalization. It doesn't do a lot of good to educate children about how bad drugs are when they come home from school to find mom and dad relaxing in the living room while legally smoking a fat doobie. Oh, and of course junior knows dad keeps his 'legal' pot in his sock drawer.

    Legalizing drugs will breed more users, especially younger users, and there isn't anything someone can say that will convince me otherwise. Do we really want to contribute further to the decay of our society?

    What needs to be talked about is the bad things that legalization would most certainly bring. Have you considered the following:

    - Legalizing drugs will actually increase the number of users by opening up a new market for former non-users.
    - Legalizing drugs will make marijuana more accessible to our children and the usage among youth will increase.
    - Legalizing drugs will not stop the black market trade because legal drugs will more expensive because of taxes, business overhead, advertising, etc. Yep, the same cartels will still be manufacturing drugs, the same pushers will still be pushing, and the same clients will still be purchasing the less expensive black market drugs. Besides that, marijuana isn't the only recreation drug in town. Yes, legalizing marijuana may cut into their profits, but it won't put them out of business.

    I could certainly add to the reasons of why I feel legalization is a bad idea, but I think I've made my point. I know there are a lot of folks out there that share your opinion on this topic and I can respect that. However, for the sake of my children and grandchildren, I hope this is a battle I end up being on the right side of. I guess this old dog is just too old to change his mind.

    I leave you with this one last though ......... Colorado's governor says that legalizing recreational marijuana use was "a bad idea".


    "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" ** Edmund Burke**

    Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts athttps://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  4. #4
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    PARADISE (San Diego)
    Posts
    99,040
    The "Flat Tax" died with the political death of Ron Paul.
    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


    Sign in and post comments here.

    Please support our fight against illegal immigration by joining ALIPAC's email alerts here https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  5. #5
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Posts
    55,883
    Quote Originally Posted by MW View Post
    Wow, at 56 years of age, I must really be out of touch. I'm sorry, but I just don't understand where you're coming from with this. First you say, let's legalize drugs even though we know they are are bad for you. Then you go on to say, let's tax them and then take a portion of the taxes so we can maybe improve the lives we've destroyed with rehab and drug education.

    Look, you admitted that recreational drug use was a bad thing or you wouldn't be talking about rehab and education in the same paragraph as legalization. It doesn't do a lot of good to educate children about how bad drugs are when they come home from school to find mom and dad relaxing in the living room while legally smoking a fat doobie. Oh, and of course junior knows dad keeps his 'legal' pot in his sock drawer.

    Legalizing drugs will breed more users, especially younger users, and there isn't anything someone can say that will convince me otherwise. Do we really want to contribute further to the decay of our society?

    What needs to be talked about is the bad things that legalization would most certainly bring. Have you considered the following:

    - Legalizing drugs will actually increase the number of users by opening up a new market for former non-users.
    - Legalizing drugs will make marijuana more accessible to our children and the usage among youth will increase.
    - Legalizing drugs will not stop the black market trade because legal drugs will more expensive because of taxes, business overhead, advertising, etc. Yep, the same cartels will still be manufacturing drugs, the same pushers will still be pushing, and the same clients will still be purchasing the less expensive black market drugs. Besides that, marijuana isn't the only recreation drug in town. Yes, legalizing marijuana may cut into their profits, but it won't put them out of business.

    I could certainly add to the reasons of why I feel legalization is a bad idea, but I think I've made my point. I know there are a lot of folks out there that share your opinion on this topic and I can respect that. However, for the sake of my children and grandchildren, I hope this is a battle I end up being on the right side of. I guess this old dog is just too old to change his mind.

    I leave you with this one last though ......... Colorado's governor says that legalizing recreational marijuana use was "a bad idea".

    No, actually, those aren't facts, MW. Americans have to get back to the basics of why we have this once great nation, and it starts with Freedom and Liberty. The social control of our citizens has not strengthened our nation, it has severely weakened it. For anyone to think that ruining someone else's life with a criminal record because they made a choice to use drugs, out of fear that someone in your family might use them violates the very foundation of our nation. Your children and grandchildren can use them now, any time they want. Drugs are everywhere, the sales volume grows every year under our War on Drugs.

    Under legalization, minors won't be allowed to purchase the drugs. Under regulation, they will be prevented from purchasing them. Will they get someone else to buy them for them, the same way kids get adults to buy alcohol? Sure, to some extent, but that's up to families to control, not the government. Drugs will be safer under legalization, because regulation will control the process of manufacturing, which makes them safer and less harmful. Will there still be cheats and black market? Sure, but those underground markets will be very small, if we require that all legal drug businesses be US owned and controlled from A to Z by US citizens. The money will stay in the US and circulate in our economy where it belongs. If we pass the FairTax at the same time or around the same time, the FairTax will be the perfect mechanism to tax the sales of the drugs and a portion of those taxes can be used to better educate the public about the real risks and consequences of using drugs as well as provide free rehab on demand without stigma to anyone who wants or needs it. This will reduce the impact of using drugs on health, families, insurance companies and law enforcement, both short and long-term.

    Americans who for whatever reason want to use the government to socially control our citizens just don't understand human behavior. These social controls have never worked to make everyone think or be like you want them to be. I doubt they've worked anywhere, but they certainly don't work in the United States with Americans. This has been proven over decades and even centuries, so all that happens is the wrongful punishment of people for being different than you, and truly, that's just wrong.

    As to Hickenlooper in Colorado, his only reason for it being a "bad idea" is the "difficulties in coming up with a regulatory structure from scratch without help from the federal government". Apparently, he's a Democrat who either can't think or wipe his bottom unless the federal government shows him how to do it or he has some paypals whose illegal foreign drug profits are getting nipped by legal domestic profits. The people of Colorado approved the ballot initiative and they were right in my view, and his little headaches of coming up with a "regulatory" structure, something that I could do for him in 30 minutes, is just a cover for his whining on behalf of those who lined their pockets illegally without any regulatory structure at all.

    And MW, at 56, you're still very young! Don't make yourself an old-timer, before you actually are one. I know you're a good person with the best of intentions, but our country is in a mess and after studying this for several years, I'm convinced that we can't stop the madness without reversing the policies that cause it, and the War on Drugs is one of the leading causes of illegal immigration and open borders, it is the only reason the US holds the disdainful rank as the world's top country in incarcerations per capita, and we've ruined way too many lives of our citizens with arrests over drug use.

    We need to be arresting illegal aliens, not citizens using drugs.

    Here's more information about ending the War on Drugs at LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition:

    http://www.leap.cc/
    A Nation Without Borders Is Not A Nation - Ronald Reagan
    Save America, Deport Congress! - Judy

    Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts at https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  6. #6
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Posts
    55,883
    Quote Originally Posted by JohnDoe2 View Post
    The "Flat Tax" died with the political death of Ron Paul.
    I oppose the Flat Tax which is just another version of the failed income tax. I support the FairTax, which eliminates the income tax and replaces it with a national sales tax collected by the States with a Rebate for any US citizen or Legal Immigrant who wants to sign up for it to offset the cost of the tax on spending up to the poverty line, which is the same thing as the personal and dependents deductions on your present income tax.

    FairTax Now! And Ron Paul who said he would vote for it, was not a co-sponsor of the FairTax. The FairTax has not died, it's been re-introduced into the US House and Senate again this session with more initial co-sponsors than ever before. You'll be hearing a lot more about it from Republicans during the 2016 campaign.

    www.fairtax.org
    A Nation Without Borders Is Not A Nation - Ronald Reagan
    Save America, Deport Congress! - Judy

    Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts at https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  7. #7
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    PARADISE (San Diego)
    Posts
    99,040
    We may hear about them but
    The Fair Tax, The Flat Tax, The 9-9-9- Plan, etc. are ALL as dead as Ron Paul's political career.
    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


    Sign in and post comments here.

    Please support our fight against illegal immigration by joining ALIPAC's email alerts here https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  8. #8
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    PARADISE (San Diego)
    Posts
    99,040
    ByJAKE MILLER CBS NEWS
    January 31, 2015, 2:32 PM

    Jeb Bush is a hypocrite about marijuana, Rand Paul says


    (L-R) Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, and former Gov Jeb Bush, R-Florida. GETTY

    Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, accused Jeb Bush of "hypocrisy" Friday after a report in the Boston Globe chronicled Bush's marijuana use during high school. Bush, a former Florida governor and potential 2016 presidential candidate, opposes the use of marijuana for medical or recreational purposes.

    "This is a guy who now admits he smoked marijuana but he wants to put people in jail who do," Paul, who's also mulling a presidential bid, said during an interview with The Hill newspaper. "You would think he'd have a little more understanding, then."


    In the Globe's report, Bush acknowledged some experimentation with the drug during his time at Phillips Academy in Andover, an elite private boarding school in Massachusetts.


    "I drank alcohol and I smoked marijuana when I was at Andover," Bush told the paper. "It was pretty common."


    One former classmate recalled the first time he "really got stoned" in Bush's room at the academy: "He had a portable stereo with removable speakers. He put on Steppenwolf for me." Another described Bush as a "toker."


    The Globe reported that several classmates said Bush, "with his taste for marijuana and his skill at tennis, straddled the line between jock and freak."

    Play VIDEO
    House Republicans signal support for medical marijuana

    As he aged and entered public life, though, Bush's views evolved. He's called his youthful experimentation with the drug "stupid" and "wrong," and he's opposed efforts to weaken marijuana laws. During the 2014 midterms, he issued a statement opposing an amendment in Florida that would have approved medical marijuana in the state.

    That about-face, Paul said, makes Bush a hypocrite.


    "I think that's the real hypocrisy, is that people on our side, which include a lot of people, who made mistakes growing up, admit their mistakes but now still want to put people in jail for that," Paul told the Hill. "Had [Bush] been caught at Andover, he'd have never been governor, he'd probably never have a chance to run for the presidency."


    Paul continued, "I think in politics the biggest thing, the thing that voters from any part of the spectrum hate worse than anything is hypocrisy. And hypocrisy is, 'Hey I did it and it's okay for me because I was rich and at an elite school but if you're poor and black or brown and live in a poor section of one of our big cities, we're going to put you in jail and throw away the key.'"


    Paul has championed efforts to reform drug sentencing laws
    , saying it's "ridiculous" to incarcerate someone for years for possession of marijuana. He remains opposed to legalizing marijuana for recreational use, though he's spoken in favor of the rights of individual states to legalize medical marijuana.

    Last year, Paul and Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, introduced an amendment to prevent federal authorities from taking action against states that have legalized the drug for medical use.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeb-bush...and-paul-says/

    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


    Sign in and post comments here.

    Please support our fight against illegal immigration by joining ALIPAC's email alerts here https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  9. #9
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Posts
    55,883
    Quote Originally Posted by JohnDoe2 View Post
    We may hear about them but
    The Fair Tax, The Flat Tax, The 9-9-9- Plan, etc. are ALL as dead as Ron Paul's political career.
    Ron Paul wasn't about the FairTax or the Flat Tax or the 999 Plan. What Ron Paul wanted to do was cut the size of the federal government in half and eliminate the income tax on individuals forcing businesses to pay all the tax needed to cover the cost of government. His position on the FairTax was he was not a supporter or advocate, but if it got to the floor of the US House of Representatives, he would vote for it. The problem with Ron Paul's plan to make companies pay it all is that gives the corporations even more power over our Congress, Courts and Executive Branch than they already have and all they do is pass the cost on to consumers anyway, so while I adored Ron Paul, his position on taxation was out of character and a complete anomaly to everything else he stood for.

    Gary Johnson from New Mexico actively supported the FairTax as does Mike Huckabee.

    Nothing with regards to the FairTax has been changed because Ron Paul retired from Congress.
    A Nation Without Borders Is Not A Nation - Ronald Reagan
    Save America, Deport Congress! - Judy

    Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts at https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  10. #10
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    PARADISE (San Diego)
    Posts
    99,040
    Ron Paul's political career is dead.

    The Fair Tax is dead.

    One did not cause the other.

    But both are still DEAD.

    No one wants to hear anymore about either.
    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


    Sign in and post comments here.

    Please support our fight against illegal immigration by joining ALIPAC's email alerts here https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast

Similar Threads

  1. Replies: 3
    Last Post: 05-10-2014, 07:58 PM
  2. Mexico-based prep school explores Chinese culture with celebration
    By JohnDoe2 in forum Other Topics News and Issues
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 01-18-2012, 03:14 PM
  3. Fed Reserve ADMITS that Its 12 Banks Are PRIVATE Not governm
    By forest in forum Other Topics News and Issues
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 07-26-2011, 06:36 PM
  4. The Federal Reserve ADMITS that Its 12 Banks Are PRIVATE
    By HAPPY2BME in forum Other Topics News and Issues
    Replies: 3
    Last Post: 07-26-2011, 02:59 PM
  5. Fatcat Prep School usurps land from Homeless Vets
    By AirborneSapper7 in forum Other Topics News and Issues
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 11-23-2009, 10:48 PM

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •