The Top Headlines About Barack Obama’s Pot-Smoking High School ‘Choom Gang’

Obama and his friends drove around the lush Hawaii countryside, hot-boxing their VW bus and re-upping with a long-haired pizza-tossing dealer named Ray….We even learn about the Choom Gang’s lingo:

He also popularised ”roof hits” after smoking in cars with the windows closed: ”When the pot was gone, they tilted their heads back and sucked in the last bit of smoke from the ceiling.” Former members told Maraniss the gang’s favoured vehicle was a ”Volkswagen bus, also known as the Choomwagon”.

One of the favorite words in their subculture revealed their democratic nature. The word was veto. Whenever an idea was broached, someone could hold up his hand in the V sign (a backward peace sign of that era) and indicate that the motion was not approved. They later shortened the process so that you could just shout “V” to get the point across. The the Choom Gang, all V’s were created equal.

“When you were with Barry and his pals, if you exhaled precious pakalolo (Hawaiian slang from 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, the Chinese-looking kid with a Polish name who answered to Topo.”

Obama even thanked his bong buddies — and their dealer — in his high school yearbook: “Thanks Tut, Gramps, Choom Gang, and Ray for all the good times.”

Maraniss noted that, “A hippie drug-dealer made his [Obama’s] acknowledgments; his own mother did not.”