OBAMA SKIRTS POT QUERY ON WEB FORUM

President Obama used the White House's first-ever "virtual town-hall"
meeting to sell his budget, but dismissed with a joke one of the
Internet participants' top topics - the legalization of marijuana as a
way to curb escalating drug violence in Mexico.

Mr. Obama framed the marijuana questions solely through the narrow
lens of economic recovery and laughed off the issue.

"I don't know what this says about the online audience," he said, with
the live audience laughing along. "The answer is, no, I don't think
that is a good strategy to grow our economy."

But many of the pot-related queries, popular among the 3.5 million
people who voted at the White House Web site on what questions would
be asked, were linked to the U.S.-Mexico border violence that
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday said is being
fueled by U.S. drug demand and weapons sales.

"It was the tone of his response, the dismissive nature of it, that
many people are frustrated with," said Paul Armentano, spokesman for
the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).

With the threat of violence spilling into the United States, Mr. Obama
this week dispatched Mrs. Clinton to Mexico, and Homeland Security
Secretary Janet Napolitano and other top officials announced a plan to
reallocate manpower to the border to combat drug smuggling into the
U.S. and gunrunning and money smuggling south to Mexico.

The fight between the Mexican government and drug cartels has
intensified in recent months and has become a hot topic on Capitol
Hill and border states such as California.

The California Legislature is debating a bill that would legalize and
tax marijuana, and Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard told
lawmakers in Congress last week that "the violence we see in Mexico is
60 to 70 percent fueled by one drug: marijuana."

On Wednesday, during a visit to Mexico, Mrs. Clinton said that
"insatiable demand for illegal drugs [in the U.S.] fuels the drug trade."

"Clearly what we've been doing has not worked," she said, referring to
the nation's past drug policies.

The topic of illicit drugs has come to the fore for a young
administration that, unlike its predecessor, has sided with states
that want to permit medical use of marijuana by eschewing aggressive
federal raids on the drug dispensaries.

It also appointed a drug czar, former Seattle Police Chief Gil
Kerlikowske, who is widely considered to favor drug treatment and
intervention over prosecution.

Mr. Obama said this month that he wants to reduce American demand for
illegal drugs.

"We do have to treat this as a public-health problem, and we do have
to have significant law enforcement," the president said during an
interview with regional newspaper reporters at the White House. "If we
can reduce demand, obviously that allows us to focus more effectively
where interdiction is needed."

When asked what the administration is doing to drive down demand,
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Thursday mentioned
increased spending for treatment and prevention, as well as the
inspection of railroad cars at the border.

"Obviously, this is going to take a coordinated effort through drug
courts and treatment and prevention in order to ensure that the rising
or sustained demand is that we take action to stop that," he said.

Mr. Gibbs attributed the popularity of marijuana questions at the
White House Web site to an organized drive by advocacy groups.

"Not the first time that an interest group gets on a Web site and
votes many times for their question to be answered," Mr. Gibbs said.

Dan Bernath, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), said
his organization did not "make a push" for supporters to flock to the
White House Web site.

But Mr. Armentano of NORML pointed to a blog post on his group's
site.

"Let the president know that millions of American voters believe that
the time has come to tax and regulate marijuana. Help us send the
White House a message our elected leaders can't ignore," Mr. Armentano
wrote Wednesday.

Mr. Bernath said that while the MPP is "sensitive to the political
realities that President Obama has to deal with when you look at the
tanking economy, the raging drug war, especially in Mexico, it's clear
that our current policies are a failure and at some point very soon we
do need to be having an open, honest discussion about fixing the
problems with marijuana prohibition and ultimately ending it."