While refusing to formally acknowledge if he or any of his editorial staff currently use marijuana, New York Times Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal made it clear he has in the past, while hitting the talking head circuit to double down on the Times current advocacy for legalization.
“I’ve never asked the people that work for me whether they smoke pot, and I’m not going to ask,” Rosenthal said of his fellow board members. “I have smoked pot in my life. I went to college in Colorado in the 1970s — you figure it out.”
Both popular opinion and state legislatures seem to be moving in the direction of legalization, so it’s not entirely accurate to say the Times is leading on the issue. Perhaps they’re just looking for some buzz?
“We’re not urging people to smoke pot anymore than we are for them to drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes,” he said during an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” “It’s just that making it illegal was creating a social cost for the country that was absolutely unacceptable.”
On Saturday, the Times’s editorial board endorsed the end of the federal ban on marijuana and announced an interactive six-part series to discuss the issue. In the editorial, the board called for federal restrictions on those under 21 but for states to determine their own policies for those 21 and older.
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