"Health & Medical News"

Barack Obama has acknowledged using marijuana and cocaine as a young man, but interviews with old friends and classmates find few who remember the presidential candidate as much of a drug user, the New York Times reported Feb. 9.

Former classmates from Obama’s high school and Occidental College, which he attended between 1979 and 1981, described Obama in mostly positive terms, with some saying he occasionally smoked marijuana but none recalling any cocaine use.

“If someone passed him a joint, he would take a drag.?  We’d smoke or have one extra beer, but he would not even do as much as other people on campus,” said Vinai Thummalapally, a friend of Obama’s from college who now raised funds for his presidential campaign.?  “He was not even close to being a party animal.”

“As far as pot, booze or coke being a prevalent part of his life, I doubt it,” added Keith Kakugawa, a friend of Obama’s from high school in Hawaii, who later spent time in prison on drug charges.

Old friends, rather, seemed to most recall Obama’s studiousness, love of sports, and flair for rhetoric. “When he talked, it was an E.F. Hutton moment: people listened,” said John Boyer, another old college classmate.? ”He would point out the negatives of a policy and its consequences and illuminate the complexities of an issue the way others could not … He has a great sense of humor and could defuse an argument.”

“I would never say that he was a druggie, and there were plenty there,” said Amiekoleh Usafi, another Occidental College classmate of Obama’s.? ”He was too cool for all that.”

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