According to 'Barack Obama: The Story,' a new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and The Washington Post reporter David Maraniss, President Barack Obama was part of a pot smoking gang in high school and college. The "Choom Gang" was a group of boys who played basketball and 'choomed,' a slang term for smoking marijuana. In some of the most candidly detailed accounts yet, the book describes Obama as someone who was "known for starting a few pot-smoking trends...

The first was called 'TA,' short for 'total absorption,'" in which any Choom Gang member who dared exhale before smoke absorption was total faced the penalty of being "skipped the next time the joint came around." 

Another trend Obama popularized was taking "roof hits," most frequently in fellow Choom Gang member Mark Bendix's Volkswagon bus. After smoking in cars with the window closed, "when the pot was gone, [members of the Choom Gang] tilted their heads back and sucked in the last bit of smoke from the ceiling."

Moreover, the book claims that it was common that "when a joint was making the rounds, [Obama] often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted 'Intercepted!,' and took an extra hit."

Considering two recent polls that show marijuana gaining considerable momentum amongst American citizens, one a Rasmussen poll that shows 56% of Americans favor legalizing and regulating marijuana like alcohol, the other a Mason-Dixon poll that showed 74% of Americans favor legalizing marijuana, perhaps Maraniss's recent discoveries might help Obama on the campaign trail. The next step would be to cease his hypocritical move of siccing the feds on legal, voter-approved medical marijuana programs across the country.