WASHINGTON -- When federal agents raided Oaksterdam University, Richard Lee's downtown Oakland, Calif.-based trade school, earlier this month, it wasn't simply a crackdown on a local pot business, it was one of the highest-profile moves in the Obama administration's nationwide assault on medical marijuana.
04/18/2012
DEA and IRS agents hauled away computers, files and pot plants, leaving behind little more than office furniture. They did not disclose the reason for the raid and have not charged Lee with any crime as of yet. In an exclusive interview with The Huffington Post, his first since the raid, Lee, 49, blasted the federal crackdown as a senseless act of intimidation. "This is one battle of a big war," said Lee, "and there's thousands of battles going on all over."
"Before he was elected, [President Barack Obama] promised to support medical marijuana and not waste federal resources on this," Lee said. "About a year and a half ago, the policy seemed to change. They've been attacking many states, threatening governors of states to prevent them from signing legislation to allow medical marijuana. They've been attacking on many fronts."
Even a pot smoker can obtain a great things in life...
Maraniss portrays the teenage Obama as not just a pot smoker, but a pot-smoking innovator.
“As a member of the Choom Gang,” Maraniss writes, “Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking trends.”
The first Obama-inspired trend: “Total Absorption” or “TA”.
“TA was the opposite of Bill Clinton’s claim that as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford he smoked dope but never inhaled,” explains Maraniss. Here’s how it worked: If you exhaled prematurely when you were with the Choom Gang, “you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around.”
As one of Obama’s old high school buddies tells Maraniss: “Wasting good bud smoke was not tolerated.”
