Cynical Nation

It's a story as old as the hills. Everyone's had a grandmother who'd routinely take a snifter of brandy "just for her rheumatism." I don't really understand the need for the pretense. I don't think anyone would begrudge Granny a bedtime snort. It's just something in human nature, I suppose, to exploit the "medicinal" benefits of controlled substances.

This aspect of human nature will be much on the minds of the Supreme Court justices as they hear arguments on this pending medical marijuana case.

Now I don't want to see federal agents (or anyone else, for that matter) harassing people who are simply doing the equivalent of what Granny did 50 years ago. They should be left alone.

Medical marijuana, however, has some problems. It's a funny kind of "medicine," for one thing. It's a weed grown in a garden (or a closet with a grow light), dried up, smoked. It is not produced in a laboratory under strict FDA oversight. Medical marijuana laws beg the question of why we should allow people to burn dried leaves and inhale the smoke when THC can be so effectively and safely distilled in a laboratory and put into pill form.

Now don't get me wrong. I think these people should be able to smoke up if they want to. I simply think the whole medical marijuana bit is problematic.

So here's a crazy thought! Why not decriminalize the stuff altogether? Sick people could still get the benefit of a "medicinal" bong hit, without having to worry about "justifying" the legitimacy of their illnesses. The rest of us could (and here's a really novel idea!) be entrusted to exercise the same judgment we currently use when choosing whether or not to use alcohol or tobacco.

I know it's going to be an uphill battle, but it really needs to be fought. I think medical marijuana is a sideshow and a distraction from the real issue. The current marijuana laws are a ridiculous anachronism, stemming from a time when we understood the drug poorly, and (let's be honest here) when we found marijuana laws to be a convenient tool for waging war against the counterculture.

But those days are gone. Look, I'm not going to pretend marijuana is tofu or oat bran, but to classify it as a Schedule I drug when liquor and cigarettes can be brought at your corner supermarket is stupid.

I know that decriminalization is not on SCOTUS's docket, but we can nonetheless hope that their decision will at least move us further in the right direction.