Jindal opposes gay marriage without saying "gay"

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal reasserted his opposition to gay marriage in a 'New York Times' editorial. (photo: Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post/Getty)

Are Republicans at War With Their Own Future?

By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone

23 April 15

readersupportednews.org

 

ouisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was a guest contributor to the New York Times editorial page this morning. He figured this was a good place to reassert his opposition to gay marriage. Apparently non-Louisianans urgently needed the reminder.

As has become the fashion (and this is almost certainly a strategy cooked up by some high-priced, focus-group-humping consultancy inside the Beltway), Jindal carefully avoided the word "gay" when explaining his opposition to gay marriage.

Excepting the Beavis and Butthead-worthy headline, "I'm Holding Firm Against Gay Marriage" (which by custom would likely be written by someone at the Times), Jindal only used the word "gay" once in a column entirely about. . .gay marriage. For example, there was this passage about the fate of recent antigay measures in Indiana and Arkansas: 

In Indiana and Arkansas, large corporations recently joined left-wing activists to bully elected officials into backing away from strong protections for religious liberty. It was disappointing to see conservative leaders so hastily retreat on legislation that would simply allow for an individual or business to claim a right to free exercise of religion in a court of law. 

The emphasis here is mine. Jindal describes the popular objection to efforts to curb same-sex marriage as coming from "left-wing activists." Apparently, this is the new term for "young Republicans," who support same-sex marriage nearly as much as Democrats as a whole.

Depending upon whose polls you believe, support for same-sex marriage among Republicans in the millennial age category hovers somewhere around 60 percent, lagging just 15-20 percent behind their counterparts in the Democratic Party. That makes for a significant schism within the Republican Party on the same-sex marriage issue, the key predictor clearly being age. Here's how it breaks down, according to Pew:

Ages 70 and older: Only 20 percent favor same-sex marriage.

Ages 56 to 69: 30 percent in favor

Ages 35-50: 42 percent in favor

Under 35: 58 percent in favor

The data on this issue is hilarious and tracks with the varying support levels among Republicans on a lot of other social issues, like marijuana legalization (support levels there are around 60 percent among young Republicans).

Reading between the lines, the children of older Republicans no longer agree with their nutbar parents on these key social issues. These young Republicans will probably change the party platform to reflect that split sometime in the near future.

In other words, what Jindal describes as "left-wing radicalism" is actually the future consensus belief system of his own Republican party. As Ambrose Bierce once put it, radicalism is just "the conservatism of tomorrow injected into the affairs of today."

The Republican Party is a paradox. It has enjoyed tremendous success at the local level in recent years, but that success has come at a time of historically low voter turnout. With the demographic picture changing so fast in this country and the party's own youth rapidly changing their minds on key social issues, the Republicans seemingly have a choice to make.

The first choice would be to embrace a different future right now, and start a long-term rebuild based around the changing consensus on these social issues.

The other plan would be to forestall the passage of time for a few more election cycles, and try to squeeze a few more White House runs out of the party's aging, Fox-devouring, ideologically anachronistic base.

Neither strategy offers too much long-term excitement politically. And the latter path, sticking with the increasingly off-putting views of its aging base, threatens to undercut the Republican party's financial standing, as corporate America shows reluctance to be tied to politically unpopular causes.

Jindal's column today cleverly proposes a third path, an elaborate "grand bargain" that could save the party from this confounding political dilemma.

First, he wipes away the whole problem of the party's unpopular bigotry against gays through that simple semantic trick of calling it a religious liberty issue.

Then he ties "religious liberty" to economic freedom, and essentially argues that the American business world should campaign against gay rights out of – get this – self-interest: 

The left-wing ideologues who oppose religious freedom are the same ones who seek to tax and regulate businesses out of existence. The same people who think that profit making is vulgar believe that religiosity is folly. The fight against this misguided, government-dictating ideology is one fight, not two. 

This is a classic use of Woody Allen's "All men are Socrates" syllogism. All left-wing ideologues want to tax and regulate business out of existence; all left wing ideologues also want to make gay marriage legal; therefore, legalizing gay marriage will result in the end of free enterprise.

Are you confused yet? Jindal is basically saying that corporate America should oppose gay marriage because the people who support it are the same people who favor regulation and other allegedly antibusiness policies.

Forget that gay marriage is mostly uncontroversial for anyone born after disco, and that young Republicans also support it in massive numbers: the seemingly separate issues of gay rights and financial deregulation, Jindal says, are actually "one fight" that will require the business world to enter into a "grand bargain": 

Those who believe in freedom must stick together: If it's not freedom for all, it's not freedom at all. This strategy requires populist social conservatives to ally with the business community on economic matters and corporate titans to side with social conservatives on cultural matters. This is the grand bargain that makes freedom's defense possible. 

In other words, business leaders, if you don't want to be regulated out of existence by our opponents, you must stick with us batty conservatives on social issues, and indulge our total unwillingness to grow the hell up and move into the 21st century. Instead of change, that's Bobby Jindal's solution to the problem of his party's unpopular social stances.

Every now and then, political parties fall into traps of their own devising. It happened in 2004 to the Democrats, who in fear of looking weak to undecideds purged their antiwar candidates in the primaries, and then watched as a deflated party base served up the uninspiring John Kerry to be slaughtered in the general election.

In this cycle, the Republicans are caught between their future and their past on issues like gay marriage. They've been relying on religious conservatives to get numbers for so long that they won't know how to cut the cord when the time comes, and the numbers say that time will have to come fairly soon, if the party wants to stay viable nationally with young people. Who knows, maybe they'll figure it out by 2016. But it doesn't look like it.

Those who want Iran war wouldn't be drafted

GEORGE TEMPLETON
COMMENTARY

By George Templeton
Gazette Blog Columnist
 
The Hero

James had to prove he could win at the casino.   The house knew that the coin toss would come up heads or tails.  It paid twenty dollars out for a ten dollar bet on either pick.  James knew he could always win by putting ten dollars on heads and ten on tails, because those were the only two possibilities.  Will our Middle East policy be similar? 

War Drums

According to an authoritative survey, more than 2/3 of the American people want military intervention in Iran.  The survey participants would not be drafted to fight.  They never experienced the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation.  They had not heard about civic duty and World War II war ration books limiting the availability of meat, sugar, butter, gas, and tires.  The victory speed limit was 35 miles per hour, a value incomprehensible to HB2662, the recent “authoritative” speeding fine dismissal bill.

Peace is our objective.  We don’t pick fights.  We promote democracy instead of building empires, but our freedom depends on liberty in faraway lands.  To be safe, we have the largest military force in the world, but its use can escalate conflict instead of increasing security.  Our actions have always been defending and spreading freedom, but this can be mistaken as aggression.  Terrorism is not national.  We require the support of those whom we would bomb. 

Bullies
Genuine authority helps us.  An authoritarian makes everybody’s rules.  He preaches less government, but it does not apply to him.  He hides behind closed doors claiming that transparency inhibits his free speech.  To retain unjustified and unwarranted control he tears down accomplishments, generates ill will, distrusts, and denigrates others instead of building them up.  Real authorities have a statesman-like character putting people and enduring principle ahead of self-interest.  Authoritarians believe that leadership is the exercise of power given by wealth.

Bullies risk our security by extending their authority into areas they know little about.  To force their way on others they repress disagreeing speech.  They restrict voting, limit choice, and make false claims when they can get away with it.  Their belief simplifies and removes ambiguity.  It makes cooperation, moderation, and humility into vices that demonstrate weakness of character.  Certainty is necessary to believe that democracy can be introduced by military force and that we have the license to remake the world in our image. 

God Said

Pat Robertson summed it up when he said that we should crush ISIS like we did Hitler.  He accused our President as not believing in America and as lacking “fundamental values” because he was taught by elite leftists who don’t really love this country.  If one is not a religious fundamentalist does it follow that he is an atheist?  Does love of country require intolerance of constructive critique?  Are the values of the poor and obscure more patriotically moral than those of the rich and famous?  Is “anticipatory self-defense” needed to prevent war? 

Destiny

In 1950 many people argued that man would never go to the moon, but they believed in invaders from Mars and flying saucers.  I was fascinated by those pictures on the covers of the science fiction magazines.  I was not allowed to read them or to attend movies concerned with the threat of nuclear war, like Rocketship X-M and The Day the Earth Stood Still, but they could not keep me from reading the science fiction in the Saturday Evening Post magazine.  It was the same way with the book of Revelation that captured my attention more than the preacher’s sermon.

Revelation is often viewed as warning of world ending events that are starting to happen, but this could be a consequence of constructing a pattern to fit with what we are familiar with.  It seems a big reach to give John, the writer of Revelation, knowledge of tanks, airplanes, and nuclear bombs when he lived within the technology of the ancient Roman Empire.  If the end is predestined there is not much hope for most of the world and little point in geopolitics.  John may have used his fantastic dreams as a literary tool.  If so, John calls us to do something different, not to remain on the sidelines, because we have hope for the future and responsibility to it.

Controversy comes from history and the writings of the great thinkers including the Bible and the Constitution.  But the fact remains that we cannot agree on what they say, even if they are a belief instead of a book or document, and even if they are claimed literally true, original in meaning, and never ambiguous or contradictory.  We learn as much about ourselves in the present as we learn from investigating the past. 

Historical

The “news” host impugned his university student “children” when he claimed that they could not honestly answer their atheistic, “America hating”, liberal professors.  Was he confusing what to think with how to reason?  We wonder if his children actually believed, “Daddy knows best”.   Was he referring to the old “consensus school” history that Texas school boards want taught?  Today’s social history recognizes recent controversy and that women and minorities have a history of their own.

History does not repeat itself, but we can contemplate human patterns and gain perspective from them.  Why, when, and how do we wage war?  Is it true that all American wars have been defensive?  Does America always win the war and lose the peace? 

World War II

Diplomacy is as important as winning battles, but the “unfair” World War I Paris peace conference unintentionally sowed the seeds of German resentment and Hitler’s rise.  Appeasement was not a new political strategy in the 1930’s.  The problem was that Hitler could not be appeased.

World War II began in the years 1931 to 1941 as a series of unconnected wars in Asia and Europe that began to coalesce in late 1941.  Today, the tension among national and religious interests in the Shias, Sunnis, Sufis, Alawites, Houthis, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Al-Shaabab, Boca Haram, and ISIS prove that religion does not belong in the public square.

It’s not true that the Axis dictators grabbed power contrary to the will of their people.  Realizing a threat, America provided military aid to the nations fighting the Axis.  We provide arms and sanction economically, but we cannot command others to do our bidding.  We can change their minds but not their hearts.  Similar policies led to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Even though there were 15 million Americans in uniform deployed around the world, they amounted to only 25 percent of the allied forces.  We did not single handedly crush Hitler.   However, America was becoming a super industrialized nation.  We supplied more than 50 percent of the war material used to defeat the Axis.  By the end of the war, America owned nearly 2/3 of the world’s gold and more than 1/2 of its manufacturing capacity.  Our exports more than doubled our imports and we were a net creditor.  We were the world’s leading producer of oil, steel, airplanes, automobiles, and electronics.

Opposite to Patrick M. Wood’s conspiracy theories and the Payson Tea Party’s anti-science paranoia, technology is what won the war, created the middle class, cured disease, fed, clothed, and entertained us.  Our people’s sovereignty and their cherished principles, not military might or wealth, made us into the greatest nation. 

The Cold War

The defeat of the Axis eliminated the common enemy of the U.S. and Russia, but it did not lead to peace.  It left a power vacuum accentuating the opposed ideologies of Communism and Capitalism.   The resulting Cold War would come to threaten the destruction of the earth in the 1980’s.  The policy of Mutual Assured Destruction gave us the false security of invincible power.  It lasted until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990.  The Korean and Vietnam wars were fought within the blanket of that ideological conflict.  The current conflict is between Islamic and Christian anti-intellectualism and Western Values. 

Korean War

In Korea, the surrender of the Japanese left the country occupied by American and Russian forces, each having installed rival governments.  In 1950, with Stalin’s consent and Truman’s condemnation, the North invaded the South.  Because Russia had boycotted the UN, we were able to get UN sanction for military intervention, but that threatened to turn into another world war when the Chinese came to the aid of the North Koreans.  Sixty years later, Korea remains divided and we still have a costly military presence there.  Sanctions did not prevent North Korea from developing a nuclear weapon. 

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War began with the failure of French colonial rule that deprived the Vietnamese people their right of self-determination.  The Gulf of Tonkin belief denied all Johnson Administration responsibility for an attack by the North and ignored contrary evidence that a second attack may not have occurred.  By 1968 we had more than 500,000 forces in Vietnam and we had stopped but not defeated the Communists.  The war was a failure because the South Vietnamese government was never stable, we did not adequately consider Vietnamese cultural history, the difficulty of creating a government like ours, and that the war was not just a domino game.  This longest war showed that we underestimated the resolve of the Vietnamese people and overestimated the commitment of America.  We won every battle but lost the war. 

Permanent War

America has a responsibility to promote common humanitarian interests by setting clear examples.  The rise of home grown Islamic terrorists reveals a weakness spawned by the compromise of principles and united by Islamic fundamentalism that will not be resolved by military might. 

The Winner

Everybody wins in a fair negotiation, but American politics negates that.  The possibilities between having and not having a bomb cannot be managed by divided government and showmen.  Experts know that the game will be different fifteen years from now, but simplification speaks louder and clearer than science.  Our risk is that we will become like the hero described in my introduction, James, who always wins but accomplishes nothing.

GCC Offers General Ed Classes this summer

Register now for English and Math classes this summer at GCC and get a head start on your Fall Semester schedule.

Written Communications I (ENG101) emphasizes clear and effective writing and critical reading.  Written Communications II (ENG102) continues development of skills and concepts taught in ENG 101.  Emphasizes research and critical reading and writing.  ENG 101 and ENG 102 are both on-line courses. 

Elementary Algebra class is an introduction to Algebra.  Topics include signed numbers, expressions, linear equations and inequalities, exponents, polynomials, factoring, and systems of equations.  MAT 077, Elementary Algebra, meets Monday through Thursday from 1-2:50 p.m. 

Intermediate Algebra is a continuation of Elementary Algebra.  Topics include functions, quadratics, inequalities, radicals, conic sections, exponentials, and logarithms.  MAT 120, Intermediate Algebra, meets Monday through Thursday from 3-4:50 p.m. 

Summer semester dates are May 26 – July 20, 2015.   Registration is ongoing now.  For students 55 and older, tuition is waived.  The campus is located at 201 N. Mud Springs Rd.  For more information call 928-468-8039.

AZ wary as Avian Influenza strikes 5 states

Arizona Taking Steps to Protect Poultry

The Arizona Department of Agriculture is working with large and small poultry farmers in the state concerning the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI).  Since the first discovery in North America in December, the department has published information on the State Veterinarian’s blog as well as the agriculture.az.gov website.

With this week’s announcement of the USDA confirming Highly Pathogenic subtype H5N2 in several different types of poultry flocks in Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Iowa, the state is increasing its surveillance.

“There are currently no cases of HPAI in Arizona,” said Arizona’s State Veterinarian, Dr. Perry Durham.   “However, as long as the HPAI virus continues to spread in the U.S., the risk of infection remains.  Arizona has a robust surveillance program actively looking for the disease in domestic poultry and wild birds.”

Avian Influenza is a highly contagious viral disease of chickens, turkeys, pheasants, ducks, quail, geese and many wild birds.  HPAI can be carried by wild waterfowl without symptoms.  Direct contact with infected birds, contaminated objects/equipment, and droplets in air (short distances) can spread the virus which is found in feces, saliva and respiratory secretions.

Signs of HPAI infection include; lack of energy or appetite, birds huddling together, swelling of the head, eyelids, comb, wattles, and hocks, coughing, sneezing or sudden death without any clinical signs.

Vaccination is not currently available for this HPAI strain, so disease prevention is important.

Follow these steps:

•           People should avoid contact with sick or dead poultry or wild birds

•           If contact occurs, wash your hands with soap and water and change into clean clothes before having any contact with healthy domestic poultry and birds

•           Keep tools and equipment clean

•           If you own poultry, do not have contact with other flocks or flock premises

•           If you have any questions about the health of your birds, contact your local veterinarian

•           Additional information on how to keep your flock healthy can be found at http://healthybirds.aphis.usda.gov/ 

All bird owners, whether commercial producers or backyard enthusiasts, can do their part to protect Arizona poultry by immediately reporting sick birds or unusual bird deaths to the Arizona State Veterinarian’s Office at (602)-542-4293 or the USDA sick bird hotline at 1-866-536-7593.

Although HPAI is a deadly disease of domestic poultry, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers the risk for infection of people to be low.  To date, this H5N2 strain has not caused any human illness.  It is also safe to eat properly handled and cooked poultry products, including meat and eggs.

For human health questions about Avian Influenza, refer to the Arizona Department of Health Services web site, http://www.azhealth.gov/phs/oids/vector/avian-flu/faqs.htm.

Kochs Defend Purchase of Scott Walker

Credit PHOTOGRAPH BY BILL CLARK/CQ ROLL CALL/GETTY

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—Koch Industries is defending its acquisition of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker against charges that it overpaid for the Midwestern politician. 

After co-owner David Koch revealed that Walker had become a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch Industries, he set off a firestorm of criticism that the company had spent too much for a worthless asset.

“There was absolutely no bidding war for Walker,” an industry analyst familiar with the market value of politicians said. “Even Sheldon Adelson had no interest in acquiring him.”

While Koch Industries did not disclose the purchase price of the Walker subsidiary, it said that Koch Industries would spend nine hundred million dollars between now and November, 2016, for a variety of upgrades to the Wisconsin governor.

In a terse statement, Koch Industries argued, “Scott Walker is a perfect fit with our diversified portfolio of elected officials,” but indicated that, if Walker underperforms, the company would be open to selling him at a later date.

Drought Spurs Protest Over 'Unconscionable' Bottled Water Business

Bottled water is facing growing controversy amid California's drought. (photo: Alamy)

By Andrew Gumbel, The Guardian UK

20 April 15

readersupportednews.org

 

alifornians facing the prospect of endless drought, mandated cuts in water use and the browning of their summer lawns are mounting a revolt against the bottled water industry, following revelations that Nestlé and other big companies are taking advantage of poor government oversight to deplete mountain streams and watersheds at vast profit.

An online petition urging an immediate end to Nestle’s water bottling operations in the state has gathered more than 150,000 signatures, in the wake of an investigation by the San Bernardino Desert Sun that showed the company is taking water from some of California’s driest areas on permits that expired as long as 27 years ago.

Last month a protest at a Nestlé Waters North America bottling plant in Sacramento, the state capital, forced a one-day closure as protesters brandishing symbolic plastic torches and pitchforks blocked the entrances. The revelations have agencies from the California State Water Resources Control Board to the US Forest Service scrambling to justify a regulatory framework that is poorly policed and imposes almost no requirements on the big water companies to declare how much water they are taking.

Nestlé itself insists its water use is efficient and has minimal impact on the environment – something the activists reject out of hand.

“While California is facing record drought conditions, it is unconscionable that Nestlé would continue to bottle the state’s precious water, export it and sell it for profit,” says the petition, which is sponsored by the political activist organisation the Courage Campaign.

While city-dwellers and tourists might not think twice before knocking back an Arrowhead – Nestlé’s premier California still water brand – or a Crystal Geyser, residents near the affected springs and watersheds tend to be more vocal, because every drop Nestlé takes is one drop less for their own use and for the local flora and fauna.

“Nestlé has repeatedly ignored requests from local residents to halt its operations,” said Erin Diaz of the nonprofit Corporate Accountability International, which is running a “Think Outside the Bottle” campaign. “It’s clear that Nestlé has no intention of voluntarily halting its dangerous water bottling practices. It’s time for state water regulators to step in.”

Nestlé and its competitors point out that bottled water accounts for a tiny fraction of California’s overall use, particularly when compared with the state’s vast agricultural infrastructure. Almond farming alone sucks down 10% of the state’s water, at a rate of roughly one gallon per almond.

In an online op-ed piece addressing the company’s relation to the drought, Nestlé Waters North America president and chief executive Tim Brown wrote: “We have made investments in all five of our facilities in California to further reduce the amount of water used for bottling and non-bottling processes.

“In 2014, we invested in conservation measures, which are projected to save at least 1.4 million gallons of water in California each year.”

But water-bottling also carries symbolic weight because it takes a natural resource that theoretically belongs to all and turns it into a product retailing for many thousands – some studies suggest hundreds of thousands – of times what it costs at source. 

Studies over the past decade and a half have challenged the claims of an industry that barely existed 25 years ago that bottled water is healthier than tap – in fact somewhere between one quarter and one half of bottled water comes from the tap – and decried the environmental impact of the plastic bottles it usually comes in.

“Pure drink or pure hype?” the National Resources Defense Council asked in 1999, and the question has never gone away. Until now, however, such objections have had little impact on the growth of the industry, whose sales topped 10bn gallons in the US for the first time in 2013 – 32 gallons per person – and are projected to be as high as 13bn gallons in 2014.

The US is now the world’s second-biggest consumer of bottled water, behind China. Nestlé and the other water giants, Coca-Cola and Pepsi, have often cut deals with relatively isolated, impoverished rural communities whereby they take a percentage of the local water supply, paying enough to keep municipal rates low for local residents. Government oversight often falls between the cracks of state agencies, the US Forest Service and autonomous Indian tribes, giving the companies greater leeway.

The Desert Sun investigation found that a Nestlé pumping operation at Strawberry Creek in the San Bernardino National Forest, 60 miles east of Los Angeles, had been unlicensed since 1987. Another operation in the same National Forest, at Deer Canyon Springs, involves a deal between Nestlé and the local water district that has not been permitted since 1994.

The US Forest Service, which has undergone multiple budget cuts over past decades and has been under attack for its handling of fire prevention and restoration in the parched American West as well as water management, now says that dealing with the expired permits and considering whether to renew them is now a “top priority”.

One key question will be how much water Nestlé is taking to create what one industry group delightfully calls “the quintessential hydrating beverage”. The company claims 700m gallons a year, or about what it takes to keep two golf courses green. That might more easily be verified if legislation to force regular disclosure of volumes bottled and sold had not been vetoed by former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2008 and 2010.

Another regulatory headache, according to the activist group Food and Water Watch, is the near-absence of legislation governing groundwater – an absence largely explained by the lobbying power of agribusiness in a state that boasts the single most productive concentration of farm land on the planet.

Governor Jerry Brown, who has come under fire for imposing a 25% reduction in water use on cities and municipalities but not on farms, signed a relatively toothless law last year that gave the state no power to assign rights to groundwater use.

According to Adam Scow, California director of Food and Water Watch, the governor and state agencies could in theory disregard the legislature and act on the California constitution which bars “waste or unreasonable use” of the state’s water supply.

“We need to start managing and protecting groundwater as a public resource,” Scow said. “In a drought, bottling public water for private profit qualifies as wasteful and unreasonable.”

Obama voices support for medical marijuana

The Huffington Post

Matt Ferner

In an interview that will air for the first time this weekend as part of CNN's latest installment of its medical marijuana documentary series "WEED 3," President Barack Obama signals support for medical marijuana and for rolling back the federal government's war on drugs.

CNN's chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, a vocal supporter of the legalization of medical marijuana, asks Obama in the documentary if he supports the goals of a historic Senate bill introduced in March that seeks to make several major changes in federal law, including drastically reducing the federal government's ability to crack down on state-legal medical marijuana programs, encouraging more research into the plant and reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug.

"You know, I think I'd have to take a look at the details," Obama began in response, "but I'm on record as saying that not only do I think carefully prescribed medical use of marijuana may in fact be appropriate and we should follow the science as opposed to ideology on this issue, but I'm also on record as saying that the more we treat some of these issues related to drug abuse from a public health model and not just from an incarceration model, the better off we're going to be."

Obama went on to use current tobacco policies as an example of a model the United States could employ to move away from its punitive approach to drug users.

"One of the great victories of this country has been our ability to reduce incidences of smoking, increase the incidences of seat belt use," Obama said. "You know, we save tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of lives every single year. We didn't throw anybody in jail; we just made sure that they were well-informed and if somebody has an addiction, we made sure that we made it easy for them to get help. And I think we need to re-emphasize that approach, because we don't want to encourage our kids to engage in drug use, but there are going to be more effective ways than, too often, the approach we're taking today."

The United States is home to just 5 percent of the world's population but a full 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. Harsh and lengthy sentences for nonviolent drug possession or distribution crimes have helped boost that figure. In 1980, there were roughly 40,000 drug offenders in U.S. prisons, according to research from the Sentencing Project, a prison sentencing reform group. By 2011, that number had ballooned to more than 500,000, though most were not high-level operators and did not have prior criminal records.

Obama's comments to Gupta echo sentiments he voiced in February backing the removal of criminal penalties for nonviolent drug offenders.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), a co-sponsor of the Senate bill Gupta was referencing, also sat down with Gupta in CNN's new documentary and slammed the federal government's marijuana laws as hypocritical.

"We now have had three presidents that have admitted to smoking marijuana," Booker said. "People that are in public office all throughout the Senate have said, 'Hey, I've smoked marijuana recreationally.' How much of a hypocrite do you have to be to say that I broke American laws using pot as a recreational thing and that I'm not going to support this idea that as a medicine for severely sick people, that they shouldn't be able to access this drug?”

Dan Riffle, director of federal policies for the Marijuana Policy Project, told The Huffington Post that U.S. tobacco policies could be effectively applied to marijuana nationally.

"I’d agree with President Obama that we should look at how we've reduced cigarette smoking rates to historic lows, and apply those same tools to marijuana," Riffle said. "That would require moving marijuana out of the Controlled Substances Act’s list of schedules altogether, just like tobacco, and instead using taxes, honest education and sensible regulations. That’s what’s working in Colorado now, and what every major poll shows the majority of Americans are ready to do."

Under the Controlled Substances Act, or CSA, the U.S. has five categories for drugs and drug ingredients. Schedule I is reserved for what the Drug Enforcement Administration considers to be the "most dangerous" drugs without currently accepted medical value. Marijuana has been classified as Schedule I for decades, alongside substances like heroin and LSD.

Riffle says the medical marijuana protections bill introduced in the Senate last month is a "great" bill, but also explained that he's critical of one provision that only moves marijuana to Schedule II -- the same schedule as cocaine and methamphetamine.

"That’s obviously not the appropriate category, and moving it there wouldn’t address bigger obstacles to research, like the DEA and NIDA’s control over the supply of marijuana available to researchers," Rifle said.

To date, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for medical purposes, and 13 others have legalized the use of limited marijuana extracts for certain conditions. Multiple studies have shown a range of potential medical benefits, suggesting marijuana combats aggressive cancer, slows the spread of HIV and stunts the progression of Alzheimer's disease. 

Recentpollssuggest a vast majority of Americans approve of legalizing, or at least decriminalizing, medical marijuana. 

CNN's "WEED 3: The Marijuana Revolution" premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. EST.