Rand Paul defended his calling Jeb Bush a hypocrite during an interview with Katie Couric on Wednesday, citing Bush’s confession that he smoked marijuana while at Phillips Academy in Andover.
“I drank alcohol and I smoked marijuana when I was at Andover,” Bush told the Globe in an interview earlier this year. “It was pretty common.”
However, Paul had some choice words for Bush, particularly in his pushing against legalizing medical marijuana in Florida.
“If you got MS in Florida, Jeb Bush voted to put you in jail if you go to a local drug store and get medical marijuana,” Paul said. “Yet he was doing it for recreational purposes and it’s a different standard for him, because he was from a very wealthy family going to a wealthy school and he got off scott-free.”
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Paul said he did not fault Bush “for just being a kid,” but noted, “I think it’s hypocritical for him to be against any kind of normalization of marijuana.”
Apparently, Bush’s penchant for marijuana while in Andover was no secret to some of his high school classmates. One, Peter Tibbetts, said his first time smoking was with Bush and a few other classmates.
“The first time I really got stoned was in Jeb’s room,” Tibbetts told the Globe.
Many classmates also said Bush, with his taste for marijuana and his skill at tennis, straddled the line between jock and freak, never comfortably in either group.
Bush has previously acknowledged what he called his “stupid” and “wrong” use of marijuana.
Watch the Rand Paul interview: