Presidential hopeful Barack Obama caused a stir by openly detailing his past marijuana and cocaine use, but now some old friends are wondering if Obama made more of his drug use than he needed to, the Sunday Telegraph reported March 25.

"I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years," Obama wrote in his memoir, Dreams From My Father, published a decade ago. "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though."

However, some people who knew Obama during his teen years in Hawaii didn't remember Obama as on the road to being a pothead or junkie as he described in the book.

"He was known as a partier, as a guy looking for a good time, but not much more," said Byron Leong, a classmate at the Punahou School. "There was pot in Hawaii in the 1970s, but it wasn't a big deal."

"It wasn't like guys were smoking dope on campus and coming to school high," added Eric Kusunoki, 57, one of Obama's teachers. "If they did, it would have been pretty obvious. If he did dabble with drugs or alcohol, I didn't see it."

Former friends and classmates also don't remember Obama's self-described struggle with issues of race, although they added that he could have kept it inside. Most remembered a happy youth who still flashes the smile they remember from their adolescence.