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Should Malia Obama serve jail time like everyone else for smoking weed illegally?

US President Barack Obama’s eldest daughter, 18, was caught smoking a joint at the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago on July 31, where she was also caught on camera twerking.

But things gets a little murky when the President of the United States gives his own 18-year old daughter a pass the same week his administration decides not to reschedule cannabis and keep the war on drugs going.

Countless people have been put in jail for a better part of their lives for doing the exact same thing the president’s daughter did. And in places where weed is legal, users must be at least 21. By the way, recreational cannabis use is illegal in the state of Illinois where it happened as well as federally.

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Michelle Obama gave a cryptic passive response on Twitter alluding to the campaign to #LetGirlsLearn.

It’s a bit of a middle finger to the half million people who are currently sitting in prison for minor drug offenses.

In 1980, approximately 40,000 people were incarcerated by the war on drugs. In 2010, that number passed 500,000 according to CNN.

A Pew Research study found it costs approximately $30,000 a year to keep one person in prison whereas it only costs $11,665 a year to educate a student in public school.

Adolescents in the White House have been getting away with all sorts of shenanigans for years. The Bush daughters were quite fond of underage drinking. Were they busted for underage drinking? Not even close.

If the president’s daughter can light up without a care in the world, we should all have that same right. This double standard has left a bad taste in the mouth of activists fighting for cannabis legalization.