Pubdate: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock, AR) Copyright: 2014 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. Contact: http://www2.arkansasonline.com/contact/voicesform/ Website: http://www2.arkansasonline.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/25 Note: Accepts letters to the editor from Arkansas residents only OBAMA: 'POT' RISK SIMILAR TO ALCOHOL WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama said he doesn't think marijuana is more dangerous than alcohol, "in terms of its impact on the individual consumer." "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," the president said in an interview with The New Yorker magazine. Smoking marijuana is "not something I encourage, and I've told my daughters I think it's a bad idea, a waste of time, not very healthy," Obama said. Obama's administration has given states permission to experiment with marijuana regulation, and laws passed in Colorado and Washington legalizing marijuana recently went into effect. But Obama urged a cautious approach to changing marijuana laws, saying that people who think legalizing the drug will solve social problems are "probably overstating the case." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom