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Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., speaks at a Jan. 27, 2013 meeting in Portland on legalizing marijuana. A longtime supporter of legalizing marijuana, Blumenauer says he has never used the drug.

(Brent Wojahn/The Oregonian)

The report that former Multnomah County Chairman Jeff Cogen was a recreational marijuana user came wrapped in a particularly unflattering package.

Cogen, who resigned under pressure in September, has also been accused of using cocaine and ecstasy, according to an Oregon Department of Justice investigation released Friday.

However, the revelations about Cogen signal something that remains true about marijuana and politicians: Even though polls show a majority of Americans now support legalizing the drug, it's the rare politician who will admit to going home at night and rolling a joint.

Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl called it the "cannabis closet" in a piece he wrote earlier this year for Huffington Post describing how he used marijuana to treat neuropathy in his feet and excruciating back pain caused by late-stage cancer.

"Aside from Bill Rosendahl, I would have to give it real thought" to come up with another elected official who admits regularly using marijuana, said Roy Kaufmann, a Portland public relations consultant who worked on last year's failed marijuana legalization measure in Oregon.

"There are a lot of people – white-collar people, medical professionals and politicians as well – who are recreational marijuana users and are still in the closet," Kaufmann added.

In some ways, he said, it's similar to the fight over gay rights. As more gays came out of the closet, public attitudes increasingly changed. And the same could happen with marijuana.

Ever since Bill Clinton talked about trying marijuana, but not inhaling, during his 1992 campaign for president, politicians have become almost casual about talking about far-in-the-past marijuana use.

"When I was a kid, I inhaled frequently," Barack Obama said two years before he was elected president in 2008. "That was the point."

But it's still quite a different thing to discuss current use.

"It's still a political risk," said Adam Davis, whose Portland-based firm of Davis, Hibbitts & Midghall frequently conducts polls and focus groups on public policy.

"I think elected officials are held to a higher standard," Davis added. "They're paid with tax dollars and people feel they should be doing their job with a clear head."

That's particularly true when it comes to drugs like crack and cocaine, which carry a connotation of particularly clouded heads. Toronto Mayor Rob Ford received only ridicule this week when he acknowledged he had smoked crack, "probably in one of my drunken stupors."

In any case, many politicians shy away from even taking a position on marijuana. For example, most major political figures in Washington stayed neutral last year on the initiative passed by voters that legalized marijuana there – including now-Gov. Jay Inslee.

Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer, who first supported marijuana legalization 40 years ago as a young state legislator, said many of his fellow lawmakers "don't see any upside and there's the potential downside of getting a 30-second television ad used against you."

Blumenauer, a Democrat, said he's never used marijuana but wouldn't hesitate to seek it out for such uses as combatting nausea during chemotherapy. But he said that successful people who talk about their marijuana use – such as Rick Steves, the popular travel writer and public broadcaster – can make a big difference with voters.

Rick Steves

Steves served as the poster boy for the pro-marijuana campaign in Washington last year. He appeared in ads and traveled the state, presenting a clean-cut, suburban dad demeanor as he made the case for why it made more sense to regulate and tax marijuana than ban it.

Steves tended to downplay his own use. "I get drunk about once in a blue moon and I smoke pot about once in a blue moon," he said in an interview after speaking in Vancouver in October 2012.

Brian Gard, whose Portland advertising and public relations firm has been hired to work on a 2014 marijuana legalization campaign in Oregon, said he's not counting on pot-smoking testimonials from politicians.

"The reason people don't say anything is because it is in fact illegal," he said. That's true in Oregon, at least for those who don't have a medical marijuana card.

Instead, Gard said he's looking more at focusing on arguing why legalization makes more sense for taxpayers and public safety. That will make the biggest impact, he argued, with voters "who have never smoked marijuana and never will."

-- Jeff Mapes