Marijuana video features Barack Obama pot lecture, arrests of Harold and Kumar

On Tuesday in this space, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition's Tom Angell accused the Obama campaign of using stoner stereotypes in a video featuring Harold and Kumar actors Kal Penn and John Cho despite the president's broken promises on pot policy. Now, Angell is sharing a clip in which Obama footage...

By Michael Roberts

September 6, 2012

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On Tuesday in this space, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition's Tom Angell accused the Obama campaign of using stoner stereotypes in a video featuring Harold and Kumar actors Kal Penn and John Cho despite the president's broken promises on pot policy. Now, Angell is sharing a clip in which Obama footage is intercut with comments from a marijuana user who reveals that Harold and Kumar have been arrested. See it below.

Angell calls the revision a parody, yet the video (made by "some reformers," he says) doesn't contain a lot of laughs. Obama's dialogue from the original is intercut with lengthy, highly politicized responses about federal action against medical marijuana dispensaries and the arrests of 850,000 people per year on weed charges -- all of them real people, unlike Harold and Kumar.

See the new version below, followed by the original.

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Michael Roberts began his career with Westword in 1990 as music editor. In 1999, he took on a new role, full-time media reporter, as author of a column called The Message. In 2008, he became the lead writer for Westword's news blog, The Latest Word, a position he held until January 2023. Michael continues to freelance for Westword, covering everything from business to sports and the media; he also contributes to Jazziz, a national music magazine. He holds a bachelor's degree from what is now Colorado Mesa University and master's degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles, and Northwestern University.

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