Obama, You're No Stranger to the Bong: An Open Letter to the President

This week, President Obama had some interesting things to say about marijuana, legalization, and exactly who is in charge of deescalating the war on drugs. Back in early 2009, Reason TV wrote an open letter to the president imploring him to help reform marijuana laws. 

Here is the text from that video, originally released on March 3, 2009:

Thank you, President Obama, for keeping your campaign pledge to end raids on medical marijuana dispensaries that are legal under state laws in California and elsewhere. Thank you for reversing an inhumane policy established by the Clinton administration and continued by the Bush administration.

Given the experience you and other elected officials have had with illegal drugs and your willingness to challenge the status quo, now is the time to reconsider decades of prohibitionist drug policies that have succeeded only in massively increasing the toll of human misery, violence, and hypocrisy. As with alcohol prohibition, the drug war

intensifies and exacerbates every negative outcome it is ostensibly designed to combat.
President Obama, do the right thing and end the war on drugs.

"Obama, You're No Stranger to the Bong" was written, performed, and edited by Paul Feine; special thanks to Alex Manning.