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Turns out, the White House’s online petition tool is sort of unmonitored

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Freedom of speech is a powerful thing in the United States of America. Without it, you wouldn’t be able to protest, campaign, or get away with this gem that a community member on 4chan dug up. Thanks to this petition to “legalize crystal fucking weed,” we now know people who work in the White House are just like most of us: They’re very busy and do not have time to screen your online shinnanegans. 

Turns out, it’s not very hard to create a petition on Mr. President’s very own website. There’s a whole section of Whitehouse.gov that lets we the people announce what we would like to see the Decider In Chief do some deciding upon, and if the required signature threshold is achieved (25,000), according to the site, ” … it will be reviewed and the administration will issue a response.” So, somebody did their due diligence – save for, you know, any copy editing for grammar, structure, or coherence – and let their voice be heard about a sincere desire to … um … legalize some “crystal fucking weed.” Whatever that is. 

You would think the White House would have a systematic spell check to track cuss words at the very least, but this petition managed to stay online long enough to garner at least – wait for it – 420 votes before someone on Obama’s website staff got wise.

As of 9:38 a.m ET the petition has been removed, with the site claiming it was a violation of the terms of participation. Which is a shame, because we were just 20,000 or so votes shy of finding out what POTUS had to say on this crucial topic. After all, the petition is tagged under “Job Creations.” At least readers in Washington and Colorado can get nice and blazed while discussing it amongst themselves. 

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Natt Garun
Former Digital Trends Contributor
An avid gadgets and Internet culture enthusiast, Natt Garun spends her days bringing you the funniest, coolest, and strangest…
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