Intro: "When you go to a White House state dinner and you're lucky enough to get some face time with the president, what do you ask the president? 'I asked him if I could have a spliff,' businessman and Virgin Group honcho Richard Branson told a crowd gathered at The Atlantic's Washington offices Thursday, the day after attending the dinner for British Prime Minister David Cameron."

Branson is a longtime advocate for the legalization of marijuana. (photo: AP)

Richard Branson: I Asked for Weed at White House

By Patrick Gavin, Politico

19 March 12

hen you go to a White House state dinner and you're lucky enough to get some face time with the president, what do you ask the president?

"I asked him if I could have a spliff," businessman and Virgin Group honcho Richard Branson told a crowd gathered at The Atlantic's Washington offices Thursday, the day after attending the dinner for British Prime Minister David Cameron.

"But they didn't have any," Branson continued, according to a video of the event as he recalled his effort to procure weed the night before at the White House.

What's he smoking? Well, Branson is a longtime advocate for the legalization of marijuana - and an admitted recreational pot puffer - and spoke at an Atlantic Exchange panel discussion titled "Benchmarching the War on Drugs." Branson appeared alongside The Atlantic's Washington Editor-At-Large Steve Clemons and Ethan Nadelmann, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

The Atlantic crowd guffawed mightily, which is appropriate: Branson was quick to note that he was joking.

So passionate is Branson's work on the issue that one audience member asked him if he'd be a Al Gore of the movement and work on a documentary on the errors of drug policies. (Branson declined, saying his son is a far better documentarian than he could ever be.)

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-6 # dick 2012-03-19 08:31

Questionable timing for stunt, & publicizing it. GIFT to Rush? Questionable locale? Gift to Santorum? Questionable format for raising serious issue? Gift to opposition? Is he funding TV Drug War Failure PAC featuring law enforcement officers critical of the phony war? Exposing destruction of Mexico's civil order by US drug $$, assault weapons? Kickbacks? Planted drugs (on frame-up victims & in former tobacco patches, MJ's moonshine)? Please don't give far right powerful ammunition at the worst possible time.

+9 # pbbrodie 2012-03-19 10:09

He said he was kidding. Didn't you read the article?

0 # Michael Lee Bugg 2012-03-20 19:26

But now the story is "out there" whether he was just kidding or not. Surely you are aware of the neo con talent to fabricate lies, so why should Branson, via the Atlantic, now via RSN to boot, even kid such a stupid thing heading into what could be a very tuff election. This almost as bad as the ACLU's annual bad timing along with the standard Republican abortion and prayer referendums designed and timed to con middle class working people into voting for Republicans. Kidding doesn't matter to Republicans and their mouth pieces!

0 # bobaka 2012-03-19 09:01

Part of the way humans are forced to censor their resistance is the recourse to what is called "humor." Making a joke about cannabis at the chief fascist castle, is the truncated expression of vast restless anger. Forced to repress substantive objections, jokes are made making a joke out of cannabis users still ashamed of their advocacy. Cannabis is revolutionary medicine. It cures the diseases of fascism and the biochemical mechanism is absolutely known, but has of yet still to enter universal understanding. Endocannabinoid deficiency diseases cripple human beings wherever vicious childrearing occurs which is everywhere. Slaves make jokes up about their enslavers which they then tell to each other.

+3 # DanBeach 2012-03-19 09:05

Must have been 420

+20 # SouthBrun 2012-03-19 09:30

Legalize the growing of HEMP.

+2 # BobbyLip 2012-03-19 10:01

Ha ha, hilarious. And of course Politico, one of the true bottomfeeders of Washington reportage, crafts its headline for maximum misconstrual.
Of course Branson was joking. What is the story here?

+2 # seeuingoa 2012-03-19 10:40

Short haired Branson is very very impressed by himself speaking to - Oh My Oh My -
an honorable Nobel Peace Prize winner
and the biggest intelligence in England
Eh Eh - what is the name again.

Take it easy man, smoke a joint and relax.

+16 # Don Williams 2012-03-19 10:43

The "joking" disclaimer could mean anything, including, "he was joking" when he said the White House had no spliffs, or he was joking when he said he asked for it. Anything at all. I suspect he was joking when he said he was joking. The truth is all of our recent presidents and at least one vp has admitted to having smoked pot. Big deal. Obama probably got a good laugh.

0 # sandyboy 2012-03-19 10:58

The man's an egomaniac publicity hound and a complete rotter. Read the unauthorised biog published some years ago on the way he made his $, mistreated partners and employees. I recall some celeb indulging in vile behaviour against stews on Virgin plane - instead of backing his staff he groveled and apologised to the culprit. He tries to come across as a cool hippie but he's posh, moneymad shit consumed by avarice for $ and acceptance, and dropping a few hints about "weed" won't change that.

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