<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[The Dish]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[http://dish.andrewsullivan.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[Andrew Sullivan]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://dish.andrewsullivan.com/author/sullydish/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[Newt Wanted To Legalize Medical&nbsp;Marijuana]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[
<p>In 1982, before he <a href="http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/01/newt-gingrich-wanted-to-kill-pot-smokers.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+andrewsullivan%2FrApM+%28The+Daily+Dish%29" target="_self">wanted</a>&#0160;to execute pot importers, Congressman Gingrich <a href="http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/newt_gingrichs_pro_medical_marijuana_letter_to_the_editor_1982" target="_self">wrote</a>&#0160;a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We believe licensed physicians are competent to employ marijuana, and  patients have a right to obtain marijuana legally, under medical  supervision, from a regulated source. The medical prohibition does not  prevent seriously ill patients from employing marijuana; it simply  deprives them of medical supervision and access to a regulated medical  substance. Physicians are often forced to choose between their ethical  responsibilities to the patient and their legal liabilities to federal  bureaucrats.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Richard Metzger <a href="http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/newt_gingrichs_pro_medical_marijuana_letter_to_the_editor_1982" target="_self">digs up</a> more highlights from Newt&#39;s past. What he once told the Wall Street Journal:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[Toking] was a sign we were alive and in graduate school in that era. See, when I smoked pot it was illegal, but not immoral. Now, it is  illegal AND immoral. The law didn’t change, only the morality… That’s  why you get to go to jail and I don’t.</p>
</blockquote>
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