Pubdate: Sun, 08 Feb 2015
Source: Summit Daily News (CO)
Copyright: 2015 Summit Daily News
Contact: http://apps.summitdaily.com/forms/letter/index.php
Website: http://www.summitdaily.com/home.php
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/587
Author: Karl Herchenroeder

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG CALLS COLORADO'S DECISION ON LEGAL MARIJUANA
STUPID

Three-term New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg harped on the
importance of vocational education and blasted Colorado's decision to
legalize marijuana as stupid Friday evening before a sold-out crowd at
the Aspen Institute.

When an audience member asked the 72-year-old Bloomberg about Colorado
marijuana, he responded that it was a terrible idea, one that is
hurting the developing minds of children. Though he admitted to
smoking a joint in the 1960s, he said the drug is more accessible and
more damaging today.

"What are we going to say in 10 years when we see all these kids whose
IQs are 5 and 10 points lower than they would have been?" he asked. "I
couldn't feel more strongly about it, and my girlfriend says it's no
different than alcohol. It is different than alcohol. This is one of
the stupider things that's happening across our country."

On education, Bloomberg said the U.S. should deliver the kind of
schooling that will help people become self-sustainable and increase a
sense of dignity. If a person has the option of going to Harvard or
becoming a plumber, he said he would suggest thinking about the
plumbing career.

"The Harvard graduate on average will never catch up to a plumber,"
Bloomberg said. "Partially because the first four years - instead of
spending $60,000, you make $60,000."

Cities should create jobs that meet the skills of its residents, he
said, not potential residents. In New York City, where $56 million
tourists visit annually, Bloomberg said the hospitality and service
industries are key. Though some might say those aren't good jobs, he
claimed that a waitress in the grand ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria
Hotel makes $150,000 a year because of strong union negotiations. A
waitress in a decent New York restaurant will make $50,000 to $60,000
a year, he said.

Bloomberg, who is now worth $36.6 billion, according to Forbes, said
the poor in the U.S. need better education. By the end of his life, he
said he's going to write a book about why the poor remain poor.

"It's always the poor that get screwed," said the founder of Bloomberg
L.P.

Moderator Jennifer Bradley, director of the Center for Urban
Innovation at the Institute, then asked what the U.S. can do to get
people out of poverty. Bloomberg responded that conventional wisdom
points to education, but education isn't going to help uneducated
adults. Bradley later asked how government can offer basic fairness to
the children "who have been failed."

Bloomberg claimed that 95 percent of murders fall into a specific
category: male, minority and between the ages of 15 and 25. Cities
need to get guns out of this group's hands and keep them alive, he
said.

"These kids think they're going to get killed anyway because all their
friends are getting killed," Bloomberg said. "They just don't have any
long-term focus or anything. It's a joke to have a gun. It's a joke to
pull a trigger."

At one point, the former mayor brought up New York City's
stop-and-frisk practices, which gained national attention in 2011.
Bloomberg said that during his last year in office, a minister at a
Baptist church in Harlem invited him to speak.

"While I'm sitting there waiting for him to introduce me, he said to
his congregation, 'You know, if every one of you stopped and frisked
your kid before they went out at night, the mayor wouldn't have to do
it,'" Bloomberg said. "And so I knew I was going to be okay with that
audience."
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MAP posted-by: Matt