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“Obama Runtz” Viral Video Sets Internet on Fire… But Is It a Real Weed Strain?
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You won’t be able to find Obama Runtz weed in dispensaries — at least not yet — but the viral strain name is already confusing political pundits and cracking up social media.
Published on May 21, 2020

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In California’s legal weed market, Runtz and its many crosses are currently some of the most sought after strains on dispensary shelves. Whether it’s Runtz OG, White Runtz, Pink Runtz, Divine Runtz, or Money Bagg Runtz, it can be hard to keep track of the popular flower variety. But on the black market, or at least in the internet rumor mill, there’s a new version of Runtz, and it’s now trending on social media and making political experts scratch their heads. Enter: Obama Runtz.

The term “Obama Runtz” exploded on social media yesterday, thanks to a viral video of a young kid with a thick Southern accent walking around a housing complex and telling followers to look out for a local man boasting about this particular, presidential strain of pot.

“I ain’t never heard of no Obama Runtz a day in my life, and I ain’t even know Obama condone shit like that,” says the kid in the clip. 

Runtz, a potent cross of Zkittles and Gelato, is branded and sold legally in California by rapper Yung LB, a member of Berner’s influential Cookie Fam. But in addition to selling non-stop at Golden State dispensaries, Runtz has taken on a life of its own through the black market, where the strain and its namesake have proliferated in a number of unlicensed forms across the country. And while there are at least a half-dozen different legit Runtz strains on the market, Obama Runtz appears to be an unofficial (or hypothetical) cross of Runtz and Obama Kush.

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Above, Google Trends data for the term "Obama Runtz" indicating peaks in 2018 and again this week on May 20th

Of course, as soon as the viral selfie video hit Twitter, social media comedians immediately turned “Obama Runtz” into a trending topic, cracking jokes about the made-up presidential strain name and potential packaging. But while most Twitter users got the jokes, the term eventually ended up trending under the “politics” tag, leading to plenty of head scratching and even a massively misguided article in Newsweek.





But just like the old saying about art imitating life, a quick look at Runtz CEO Yung LB’s Instagram page shows plenty of story posts making fun of the fake Obama Runtz strain early on Wednesday, but ended last night with a full-scale music video shoot for a new song called, you guessed it, “Obama Runtz.” 

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Zach Harris is a writer based in Philadelphia whose work has appeared on Noisey, First We Feast, and Jenkem Magazine. You can find him on Twitter @10000youtubes complaining about NBA referees.
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