Open Letter To Sasha and Malia Obama

Dear Sasha and Malia,

I’m sorry to have to write you like this and get you involved in a national discussion and all, but it seems your father hasn’t been listening to the huge number of petitions (ones he specifically invited!), the results of the elections in Colorado and Washington, and the polls.

And I know that the children of the President are supposed to be “off limits” for political purposes, but here’s the thing: lots of other people and their children are suffering for real. Many people are dying, most of them needlessly due to violence, and it’s all because of people’s greed for power and money. Oh, and the war.

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Not the war in Afghanistan, but the War On Drugs. And it’s not a war in or on a foreign country or on terrorists. The government (that’s the Federal government, which your father runs) likes to tell the rest of us that the Drug War is really against criminals and drug smugglers. But it’s ordinary people, many of them completely innocent or even sick folks, who are bearing the burden of this war.

For instance, in Mexico, it’s likely that over 120,000 people have been killed in the last 6 years. That’s the equivalent of two Sandy Hook massacres every single day (by the way, please ask your dad what happened to the funds for police protection for schools that was cut off?).

Your dad’s supporters, like Andrew Sullivan, say clearly: Mr. President, Don’t Even Think About It. The NY Times echoes John Lennon: Give Pot A Chance. And Rolling Stone, echoing the fall of the Soviet Union: Mr. President, End This War. Even Patrick Leahy, a politician for 40 years, knows when things are changing: he’s going to hold a hearing on amending the Federal law against marijuana possession.

Please ask your dad why four men arrested in California for plotting serious acts of terrorism, such as blowing up military bases, face 15 years in prison, while Chris Williams was facing over 85 years in prison just for growing a bunch of plants as medicine for sick people.

Please ask him why one of the largest banks in the world, which has admitted to breaking the law by laundering literally billions of dollars for the drug cartels – directly enabling the murders they’ve committed – faces no criminal penalty whatsoever.

Please ask him about his marijuana experiences in his book:

“And if the high didn’t solve whatever it was that was getting you down, it could at least help you laugh at the world’s ongoing folly and see through all the hypocrisy and bullshit and cheap moralism.”
— Barack Obama

Marijuana hasn’t changed at all since then, either…it still helps you see through all the hypocrisy. So ask him, since he smoked plenty of marijuana while he was growing up and he knows it is basically harmless, why and how he can continue to be in charge of a system that puts young men and women just like himself behind bars, often ruining their lives?

When he was growing up, he surely heard or used the common term back then, “The Man”, to refer to the powerful people and institutions that run this country. Well, now, he’s “The Man”. When is he going to start using his power to make society better by ending this war?

Ask him. Please.

Peace,
Old Hippie