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Jeb Bush Outed As Marijuana Smoker In Front Of America And His Elderly Mother

By Shelley Hazen
Published on: 02:01 PST, Sep 17, 2015

It’s a pretty well-known fact that presidential candidate Jeb Bush had a penchant for marijuana in his youth.

According to CBS News, Bush spent his high school career playing tennis and smoking pot. And at the GOP Presidential Debate Wednesday night, fellow candidate Sen. Rand Paul dug up that past for all the world — and former first lady Barbara Bush — to see.

Jeb apologized to his mom afterward. She never approved of her son smoking pot.

This is how Bush’s history with pot came up: the candidates were discussing its legalization, something Paul supports for medicinal use, when he suggested some hypocrisy among his opposition. Rand implied that some in the GOP oppose legalization today, but enjoyed a joint or two in the past, Newsweek added.

And Jeb piped right up.

“He was talking about me. Forty years ago I smoked marijuana and I admit it. I’m sure that other people might have done it and might not want to say it in front of 25 million people … My mom’s not happy that I just did.”

While few are likely to care that anyone smoked pot when they were 17, the debate over the war on drugs is worth discussing and GOP candidates spent plenty of time on the topic. While Paul has called for rehabilitation and not prison time for marijuana use, Gov. Chris Christie said he didn’t approve of anyone smoking it recreationally, and Carly Fiorina said that people are much too cavalier about its harmful effects as a gateway drug.

Her daughter died of a drug overdose.

“I agree with Sen. Paul. I agree with state’s rights. But we are misleading young people when we tell them that marijuana is just like having a beer. It’s not. And the marijuana that kids are smoking today is not the same as Jeb Bush smoked forty years ago.”

According to Vice, Bush and Paul moved right along to heroin and began a discussion on drug courts and the racial disparities prevalent in drug sentencing laws. That’s the first time racial issues have been discussed in a debate.

The drug war, Rand noted, has “gone too far.”

“When Jeb was a very wealthy kid at a very elite school, he used marijuana but didn’t get caught, didn’t have to go to prison,” he said earlier this year. “I think it shows some hypocrisy that’s going to be very difficult for young people to understand why we’d put a 65-year-old guy in jail for medical marijuana.”

Along with Jeb and his weed revelations, the GOP debate featured Donald Trump, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Trump remains the frontrunner in the race. Of course, the debate had other notable moments.

Carly’s opposition to putting a woman on the $10 bill.

Christie putting the lid on a verbal joust between her and Trump.

And Jeb Bush insisting that the Donald apologize.

[Photo Courtesy Justin Sullivan / Getty Images]

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