environmental concern

'Marijuana is not a drug, it's a leaf,' says Schwarzenegger

By Ciar Byrne, Arts and Media Correspondent
The Independent
29 October 2007

Already facing enough problems with the wild fires that have swept California, the state's governor Arnold Schwarzenegger may have stepped into a new row by claiming that marijuana is not a drug. In an interview with GQ magazine, the Hollywood star turned governor of California insisted: "I didn't take any drugs."

The interviewer, former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan, put it to the star that he had admitted smoking marijuana in the past. In Pumping Iron, the bodybuilding documentary which launched his career 30 years ago, he was shown taking a drag on a spliff.