Obama smoking a joint

[Jenn]

Comment: I got this from a friend who says it is a picture of Barack Obama
smoking a joint. Can you verify?

[hstarr]

Here is the whole set:

The slideshow on Time magazine where this was originally published: http://www.time.com/time/photogaller...815160,00.html

Also, an interview about the topic: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/1..._n_151787.html

supposedly it is just a cigarette.

[Richard W]

It's in several of the pictures. It certainly looks more like a cigarette than a joint - it's not hand-rolled - and it would seem odd to be smoking a joint in a semi-formal photo shoot like that one. I guess it's only the pose that makes people think of a joint.

[Critterbites]

Yeah, it's just the way he's holding it that makes it look like a joint. My father smoked the whole time I was growing up, and frequently held his unfiltered Pall Mall's that way.

[Richard W]

Well, as an infrequent smoker who occasionally smokes both joints and filtered cigarettes, I find myself naturally holding (hand-rolled) joints upright, and filtered cigarettes horizontally. It's because the contents are more likely to fall out of one than the other.

The other difference is how close to the end you can smoke it, of course. A joint tends to have a roach that's smaller than a standard cigarette filter. An unfiltered cigarette could presumably be smoked all the way to the end, if you could hold it in such a way as to not burn your fingers. (Or lips.)

It might well make sense to hold an unfiltered cigarette in a way that's more similar to a joint. Obama's is the "my cigarette is quite little but my fingers are hot" pose...

[effo5231]

Even if it is a photo of Obama lighting up a spliff, so what? Didn't he already go on the record admitting that he experimented with marijuana in his youth?