DENVER: Authorities have dismissed alleged threats against the US presidential candidate, Barack Obama, as the ugly racist rantings of drug-addled methamphetamine users rather than a genuine danger to the candidate.

Remarks made while under the influence of drugs were "aspirational rather than operational", the US Attorney for Denver, Troy Eid, said on Tuesday. Police, however, were continuing to investigate the matter,

"The threats involved a group of meth heads, methamphetamine users, abusers, all of whom were impaired at the time," Mr Eid said.

There was no credible threat and insufficient evidence of a plot or conspiracy.

According to court documents, two witnesses related conversations in which Mr Obama was referred to as a "nigger" and that "no nigger should ever live in the White House".

Reference was also made to a "grassy knoll" - an allusion to the shooting of President John Kennedy in 1963.

One of the three men charged with a range of firearms and drug offences arising from the investigation, Nathan Johnson, 32, recalled a conversation last Saturday in which Shawn Robert Adolf said he wanted to kill Mr Obama on the day of his presidential inauguration.

Johnson said there were no political reasons for wanting to kill Mr Obama. The only reason was that he was black.

Ian Munro