Obama Makes Stoner Jokes While the DOJ Ruins the Lives of Marijuana Users

In a promotional video released yesterday, President Obama "calls" actor Kal Penn, the former Associate Director of Public Engagement for the Obama administration, and tells him to get ready for the DNC Convention. On a split screen, Penn is seen with his Harold and Kumar co-star John Cho. The two are watching cartoons, surrounded by pizza boxes, soda, candy, and other junk food. The none-too-subtle suggestion is that, like the characters in the Harold and Kumar films, Cho and Penn are stoned. 

BuzzFeed's Zeke Miller says it is "perhaps the most direct appeal ever for the pothead vote"–as if all it takes to seduce marijuana users is a hastily made video that characterizes smokers as junkfood gobblers with pubescent attention spans. 

What's more insulting is that Obama would wink and nod at marijuana use for political gain while federal agents under his control raid the homes and businesses of people who operate state-legal medical marijuana businesses, threaten to seize the assets of landlords who rent to medical marijuana businesses, raid the homes and threaten the children of men and women who sell marijuana paraphenelia, and continue to obfuscate and denounce research that shows the medical uses of marijuana.  

This video isn't an appeal, it's a half-hearted reach-around.