Malia Obama smoked what looked like a joint and it has set the Internet ablaze.
The First Daughter’s alleged toke happened at the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago, which fell at the same time as the Democratic National Convention. But it lit up Twitter last night after Radar Online published a photo of it.
It prompted a collective cry to “leave Malia Obama alone.”
“I don’t care if Malia Obama is smoking cigarettes, or smoking pot. I don’t care if she’s licking toads, for God’s sake. Let her be a teen,” one guy wrote on Twitter.
Others pointed out the 18-year-old, who graduated from a prestigious high school in June, has been accepted to Harvard (which she’ll attend in 2017 after a gap year).
READ MORE: Things to know about a gap year
“Y’all smoking weed and can’t even pass your global history regents. Leave that girl alone.”
Of course, some critics used this as an opportunity to put her famous father down. One Republican politician and Donald Trump supporter went so far as to question President Barack Obama’s ability to “vet” Syrian refugees because of this incident.
Others bashed her clothing choices at the music festival and her “provocative” dancing which they called twerking.
One said this meant she had “no respect” for her father, who’s probably had a little chat with his daughter by now.
So you caught your kid smoking marijuana…
For other parents who find themselves in President Obama’s shoes, and see (or smell) evidence of their child’s marijuana-use, think before you react.
Instead of going in with guns blazing, Joanna Seidel, a Toronto-based family and child therapist, suggests an ‘internal conversation with yourself” to figure out the root of your concerns. Is there a history of substance abuse in your family? Are you worried about long-term addiction? Or them driving while high?
Express those concerns “clearly, calmly and rationally” to your child.
“You have to be very specific.”
Age is also a factor. Seidel said it’s totally different if you’re dealing with 13-year-old who may have exercised “poor judgment,” or a 17-year-old who could have “thought it through and wanted to try it.”
Being less judgy of other parents is also a plus.
If some parents let their kids smoke marijuana it doesn’t mean they’re bad parents, Seidel said.
Hopefully the President won’t be too hard on her. After all, he’s admitted to smoking weed himself.
He’s also said he doesn’t think it’s more dangerous than drinking.
For the record…
New research this summer actually found being under the influence of alcohol is more likely to increase the chances of unsafe sexual behaviour than being high.
Side note: stoned sex was also more likely to be described as better.
“The study found that both men and women reported longer and more intense orgasms on marijuana, with one woman reporting hers were ‘magnified at least by five times,” the Washington Post reported.
READ MORE: Study questions link between teen pot smoking and IQ decline
As for the legality of Obama’s suspected toke, small amounts of marijuana have recently been decriminalized in the state of Illinois, where the festival took place.
While she’s not the first — and likely won’t be the last — child of a President to be heavily scrutinize by the media, we have a feeling she’ll be just fine.
First Lady Michelle Obama has said her eldest daughter wants to be a filmmaker.
She’s interned on the set of HBO’s Girls and on Halle Berry’s now-cancelled TV sci-fi drama Extant, which aired on Global in Canada. She’s also had internships at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington.
Her 15-year-old sister Sasha, meanwhile, has a summer job at a seafood restaurant.