Dreams from My Father: on Drugs

Understand why youngsters want to use drugs

Junkie. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man. Except the highs hadn't been about me trying to prove what a down brother I was. Not by then, anyway. I got high for just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory. I had discovered that it didn't make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmate's sparkling new van, or in the dorm room of some brother you'd met down at the gym, or on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school and now spent most of their time looking for an excuse to brawl. You might just be bored, or alone. Everybody was welcome into the club of disaffection. And if the high didn't solve whatever it was that was getting you down, it could at least help you laugh at the world's ongoing folly and see through all the hypocrisy and bullshit and cheap moralism. Source: Dreams from My Father, by Barack Obama, p. 87 Aug 1, 1996

*The above quotations are from Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, by Barack Obama, published August 1996.* Click here for definitions & background information on Drugs. Click here for more quotes by Barack Obama on Drugs.
*2008 Presidential contenders on Drugs:*
*Republicans:* Chmn.John Cox Mayor Rudy Giuliani Gov.Mike Huckabee Rep.Duncan Hunter Sen.John McCain Rep.Ron Paul Gov.Mitt Romney Sen.Fred Thompson	*Democrats:* Sen.Hillary Clinton Sen.John Edwards Sen.Mike Gravel Rep.Dennis Kucinich Sen.Barack Obama	*Third Parties:* Green: Rep.Cynthia McKinney Socialist: Brian Moore Independent: Mayor Mike Bloomberg
Please consider a donation to OnTheIssues.org! Click for details -- or send donations to: 1770 Mass Ave. #630, Cambridge MA 02140 E-mail: submit@OnTheIssues.org (We rely on your support!)