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Obama On His Smoking Habit: I Do Mess Up!

by Tanya Thomas on Jun 25 2009 10:12 AM

Although US President Barack Obama is '95 percent cured from smoking' and claims to never light up in front of his daughters, he still maintains that quitting is a constant struggle. Obama even admitted that "there are times where I mess up."

"As a former smoker I constantly struggle with it. Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes. Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No. I don't do it in front of my kids. I don't do it in front of my family," he said.

"I would say that I am 95 percent cured. But there are times where I mess up," Obama said at a White House press conference one day after he signed sweeping legislation to impose stricter curbs on cigarettes in a bid to stamp out youth smoking.

"Once you've gone down this path, then, you know, it's something you continually struggle with, which is precisely why the legislation we signed was so important, because what we don't want is kids going down that path in the first place," he said.

But the president also lightly scolded the reporter for tying her question to the new law, declaring: "The new law that was put in place is not about me. It's about the next generation of kids coming up."

"Just say that you just think it's neat to ask me about my smoking as opposed to it being relevant to my new law. But that's fine. I understand. It's an interesting human interest story," he said.

Source-AFP
TAN


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