Says the President: "I don't know what this says about the online audience," he says... "No, I don't think legalizing marijuana is a good way to grow our economy." Incidentally, a White House spokesman says that Obama was not given the questions that Jared Bernstein planned to ask him in advance... The full quote (courtesy of CBS's Brian Montropoli) is below:

"Can I just interrupt, Jared, before you ask the next question, just to say that, you know, we -- we took -- we took votes about which questions were going to be asked, and I think 3 million people voted or 3.5 million people voted. I have to say that there was one question that was voted on that ranked fairly high, and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and job creation.



And I don't know what this says about the online audience... (laughter)



... but I just want -- I don't want people to think that -- this was a fairly popular question. We want to make sure that it was answered.



The answer is, no, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy. So -- all right...



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