Sen. Bernie Sanders, A Vermont Independent who is running for president on the Democrat ticket, said in a recent interview he tried marijuana twice and concluded, "it's not my thing."
In an interview with Katie Couric of Yahoo News, Sanders touched on a variety of subjects — including his past drug use.
"I coughed a lot. I'm sitting around, I smoked marijuana," said Sanders, who then coughed for affect. "I smoked marijuana twice, didn't quite work for me."
The segment on marijuana begins with 10:48 remaining in the video below.
Story continues below video.
When asked whether he supports the legalization of the drug, Sanders instead played to both sides of the issue.
"It's not my thing, but it is the thing of a whole lot of people," he said. "And if you want to make the argument that maybe marijuana is less harmful to health than tobacco, I think you'd probably be making a correct argument. Some may disagree but I think it's probably true.
"And if you talk to law enforcement folks, what they worry about is they see this is an entry-level drug, which leads to coke, which leads to heroin, and so forth. A gateway drug."
Sanders is a registered independent but is running for president as a Democrat. He has served as a Senator since 2007, and before that he was a member of the House starting in 1991.
Sanders announced his candidacy for president in April and
has called himself a socialist.
He made headlines last week when it was discovered
he wrote an essay in 1972 that said women fantasize about rape.
Sanders is challenging Hillary Clinton and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley for the Democratic nomination. He would like the presidential primary debates
to begin this summer and said he's looking forward to discussing the issues with his competition on both sides of the aisle.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.