Obama tries to defuse pot questions

President Obama responded to a surge of interest about legalizing marijuana in his online “virtual town hall” meeting Thursday, saying with a chuckle that it’s not a way to improve the economy.

“There was one question that was voted on that was fairly high and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and job creation,” said Mr. Obama, walking around the East Room with a microphone in front of a live audience of teachers and community volunteers.

“I don’t know what this says about the online audience,” said the president, laughing softly. “The answer is no, I don’t think that is a good strategy to grow our economy.”

The audience in the East Room laughed and clapped, and Mr. Obama moved on to the next topic.

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But the president addressed the issue unprompted during the hour-long session, obviously uncomfortable with avoiding what was a dominant theme among online questions at whitehouse.gov.

More than 3 million votes were tallied on the Web site, the five most popular questions in the category of “financial stability” were related to legalizing pot. In total, more than 90,000 people submitted more than 100,000 questions.

“Has the administration given any thought to legalizing marijuana, as a cash crop to fuel the economy? Why not make available, regulate, and tax something that about 10 million Americans use regularly and is less harmful than tobacco or alcohol,” wrote Sarah in Atlanta, Ga.

Though the mediums were much different more than 70 years ago, the idea of Town Hall-style meetings is not new: President Franklin Roosevelt used radio to deliver “fireside chats” to reassure anxious Americans during the economic turmoil of the 1930s.

“We’re going to try something a little different,” Mr. Obama said in a video on the site. “We are going to take advantage of the Internet to bring all of you to the White House to talk about the economy.”

He also used the format to outline plans to regulate U.S. financial markets and to call for universal health care.

“We should be able to provide [affordable] health care insurance to every American,” he said.