BOOK EXCERPTS: BARACK OBAMA THE JOINT INTERCEPTOR

From UK Daily Mail June 2, 2012

Barack Obama: The Story will go on sale June 19.  Here is an excerpt:

'In the Honolulu of Barry's teenage years marijuana was flourishing up in the hills, out in the countryside, in covert greenhouses everywhere. It was sold and smoked right there in front of your nose; Maui Wowie, Kauai Electric, Puna Bud, Kona Gold, and other local variations of pakololo were readily available.'

'A self-selected group of boys at Punahou School who loved basketball and good times called themselves the Choom Gang. Choom is a verb, meaning "to smoke marijuana".'

'Barry popularized the concept of "roof hits": when they were chooming in the car all the windows had to be rolled up so no smoke blew out and went to waste; when the pot was gone, they tilted their heads back and sucked in the last bit of smoke from the ceiling.'

'When you were with Barry and his pals, if you exhaled precious pakalolo (Hawaiian slang for marijuana, meaning "numbing tobacco") instead of absorbing it fully into your lungs, you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around. "Wasting good bud smoke was not tolerated," explained one member of the Choom Gang, Tom Topolinski.'

'Barry also had a knack for interceptions. When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted "Intercepted!," and took an extra hit. No one seemed to mind.'

'In another section of the yearbook, students were given a block of space to express thanks and define their high school experience. Nestled below [Obama's] photographs was one odd line of gratitude: "Thanks Tut [his grandmother], Gramps, Choom Gang, and Ray [his drug dealer] for all the good times." A hippie drug-dealer made his acknowledgments; his own mother did not.'

'Their favorite hangout was a place they called Pumping Stations, a lush hideaway off an unmarked, roughly paved road partway up Mount Tantalus. They parked single file on the grassy edge, turned up their stereos playing Aerosmith, Blue Oyster Cult, and Stevie Wonder, lit up some "sweet-sticky Hawaiian buds" and washed it down with "green bottle beer" (the Choom Gang preferred Heineken, Becks, and St. Pauli Girl).'

DM January, 2014: New Details from Court Records of Murder Trial 

BuzzFeed: A User's Guide To Smoking Pot With Barack Obama

(Ray) was a long-haired haole hippie who worked at the Mama Mia Pizza Parlor not far from Punahou and lived in a dilapidated bus in an abandoned warehouse. … According to Topolinski, Ray the dealer was "freakin' scary." Many years later they learned that he had been killed with a ball-peen hammer by a scorned gay lover. But at the time he was useful because of his ability to "score quality weed."...

Magoo's Puck's Alley Diner's Comments:

This place thinks of itself as a pizza parlor. The former pizza parlor that occupied that spot, Mama Mia's, was shut down because the cooks were dealing drugs out of the kitchen. The clientele has become much less scary since the ...ahem... change in management, but the pizza has gotten worse. The redeeming feature of Magoo's is $5 pitchers of reasonable beer.

LINK: Letter to the Editor of the Star-Bulletin, 2002

Green Harvest turned smokers into predators

Having growing up in Hawaii throughout the '70s, '80s and '90s, I must applaud Kat Brady's assessment that the disproportional use and arrest of "ice" users in Hawaii was a reaction to the eradication of pakalolo through Operation Green Harvest ("Arrested males on 'ice' top 35 percent," Star-Bulletin, June 12).

Green Harvest was a boon to lawmakers and law-enforcement agencies aiming to persuade the public that they were reducing crime. It was an easy sell because marijuana is bulky, highly visible and easily recognized, making it easy to eradicate and display on the 6 o'clock news.

Crystal meth, on the other hand, is inconspicuous, potent and much more destructive to the individual and society. It is easy to manufacture and readily marketable to those seeking the recreational drug high.

Anyone with basic drug education would know that this eradication effort would open the door to a much bigger problem, which we are now seeing through crime statistics. We have turned the weekend pot smoker into a high-strung, jobless, ruthless, desperate and addicted predator on society. Instead of ordering out for pizza, beer and a movie, today's drug user stalks people and property to fulfill the need for a binge.

It is a common belief that marijuana leads to use of harder drugs. Perhaps it was the lack of marijuana that led to harder drug use, no?

Tom Topolinski
Wellington, Fla.
Former Hawaii resident