CLINTON: POT SMOKING SHOULD NOT BE PRISON OFFENSE President Clinton, who tried to avoid the stigma of smoking marijuana by saying he never "inhaled," tells Rolling Stone magazine that people should not be jailed for using or selling small amounts of the drug. In an interview with the rock magazine released on Wednesday, Clinton was asked if he thought that "people should go to jail for using or even selling small amounts of marijuana?" Clinton, who raised eyebrows in the 1992 presidential primary campaign when he admitted trying the drug but adding he didn't inhale, told the magazine, "I think that most small amounts of marijuana have been decriminalized in some places, and should be." He added, "We really need a reexamination of our entire policy on imprisonment. Some people deliberately hurt other people and they ought to be in jail because they can't be trusted to be on the streets. Some people do things that are so serious that that they have to be put in jail to discourage other people from doing similar things. "But a lot of people are in prison because they have drug problems or alcohol problems and too many of them are getting out -- particularly out of state systems -- without treatment, without education, without skills, without serious efforts at job placement." The interview, to be published on Friday, only weeks before Clinton leaves office, was conducted during the presidential campaign and Clinton made a prediction that has not come true and may not come true -- that Vice President Al Gore would carry Florida. "Gore will win Florida, Pennsylvania and Michigan. I always thought Gore would win Florida. We worked like crazy there for eight years. And we've done a lot for Florida and a lot with Florida -- and Joe Lieberman has helped a lot in Florida. So I think Gore will win." That matter is still in the courts even though Florida has certified Republican George W. Bush the winner. In the interview, Clinton also blamed his impeachment in the Monica Lewinsky scandal on the work of a right-wing Congress and said special prosecutor Kenneth Starr "did what he was paid to." He added, "The right wing was in control of the Congress and ... they thought they had a free shot to put a hit on me, and so they did. I don't think it's complicated." Note: President Clinton, who tried to avoid the stigma of smoking marijuana by saying he never "inhaled," tells Rolling Stone magazine that people should not be jailed for using or selling small amounts of the drug.
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