For me it's not about smoking pot, it's about not putting people in jail for it. A decent chunk of our budget mess at the state and local levels is in law enforcement. We spend huge amounts of money enforcing bad laws. I'd like to make that stop, but it has to stop at the federal level first.

Think of all the lives its ruined by making felons (destroying future careers) out of nonviolent people. Think about the complete destruction of our civil liberties/due process/militarization of police/etc. The War on Drugs is one of the most destructive and wasteful endeavors ever attempted by the US government. It funds gang activity, makes police encounters more dangerous, all in all it affects US citizens more than the most other federal activities.

The marijuana topic is legit. We have ample data that shows overwhelming interest in the subject. It's not just about the drugs, it's also about the laws enforcing them. People don't necessarily want to get high, they just don't want to pay to have one of the highest per-capita imprisonment rates in the world.

It's a legitimate issue. The War on Drugs is an abject failure that has cost billions of dollars and left millions of lives either lost or destroyed through violence or imprisonment. It's a moral disaster, as well as a financial one. The only reason it continues is because voting to end it would be politically difficult.

When good politics back up terrible policy, it's reasonable to ask the head of state why he supports them.

I'm hoping (maybe against hope…) that Twitter isn't representative of the whole country.

1) It's a funny question to retweet, 2) it's something the president does not typically get asked about, and 3) As far as problems facing our country, it has a relatively easy answer, IMHO.

I'm sure more people are worried about the economy, but "how are you going to fix unemployment?" is neither a fun/funny question to ask nor is it likely to produce an interesting or novel response.

I think it has the highest ratio of "people support it" to "politicians and DC media absolutely will not even mention it let alone give it credence", so people tend to bump it up on places like twitter because it's the only time they can express the viewpoint.

Why does asking a question about it make it the biggest concern? It's a simple issue with a clear way to decide and most people simply want him to go along with his repeated promises of not using the fed to raid dispenceries, which is exactly what the AG is doing right now.