Bloomberg Says He Regrets Marijuana Remarks (2002, he said he enjoyed getting high)

[Celerity]

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/10/nyregion/bloomberg-says-he-regrets-marijuana-remarks.html

By Jennifer Steinhauer
April 10, 2002

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said yesterday that he regretted making an off-the-cuff comment about his marijuana use that led to a full-page advertisement, and he demurred when asked if he believed the drug should be legalized for medical use.

He commented as the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Foundation began a $500,000 advertising campaign featuring the mayor responding to the question of whether he had ever tried marijuana by saying: ''You bet I did. And I enjoyed it.''

The quotation came from an interview Mr. Bloomberg gave to New York magazine last year before he announced he was running for mayor. Among the advertisements was a full-page one in The New York Times yesterday. ''What I said back then was the truth,'' Mr. Bloomberg said during a news conference in the Blue Room at City Hall.

''In terms of, I had, certainly when I was younger, as I suppose most people in my generation, experimented. I never lie, so if somebody asked me a question, I told them. Do I, in retrospect, wish I didn't say it that day so they couldn't quote it? Of course.'' The mayor said that he was ''a believer that we should enforce the laws, and I do not think that decriminalizing marijuana is a good idea.''

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