Is Our President a Stoner?

Justin Cascio muses on how our presidents’ affections toward mary-jane makes them relatable, not  disgraceful.

Do you remember that scene from Harold and Kumar Go To Guantanamo, where Harold and Kumar smoke pot with George W. Bush? It made me look at the then-sitting President with a degree of sympathy: because while he strutted around with his “Mission Accomplished” bullshit, he could still get real with a couple of regular guys. He must have been cooler than I thought, I thought, watching the screen through increasingly glazed eyes.

A new book describes now-sitting President Barack “Barry” Obama’s pot-smoking days in Hawaii. According to the Huffington Post, David Maraniss, author of Barack Obama: The Story, reveals that Barry was a game-changer. Not content to “pass the dutchie on the left hand side,” he would barge into the rotation, yelling “Interference!” and his stoner friends thought he was so cool, they let him and didn’t even get mad. His green props get greener with revelations of the “total absorption” rule Obama created, as well as this super saver tip:

Maraniss also describes Obama’s technique of “roof hits” while hot-boxing cars. “When the pot was gone, they tilted their heads back and sucked in the last bit of smoke from the ceiling,” he writes.

As the field of Republican nominees to the presidential election narrows, it gets more difficult to imagine another Republican who’d inhale like Dubya did with Harold and Kumar.

Photo of Marihuana Joint courtesy of Shutterstock