JUST SAYING 'NO' MIGHT BE INVITATION TO SAY 'YES'

The Supreme Court decided last month that a federal law classifying
marijuana as illegal includes no exception for medical uses. Such a
shortsighted decision is like writing a prescription for Acapulco Gold
for people who likely never would have wanted the herb for their ailments.

One state after another has been clearing the way for medical
marijuana, including Nevada just this week. In addition, voters in
Arizona, Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Oregon and Washington
have approved ballot initiatives allowing it. In Hawaii, the
legislature passed a similar law and the governor signed it last year.

They are the exceptions and likely will face battles with the feds
when following through with legalized medicinal pot.

It seems we've never been able to learn that the more you try to make
something off-limits, the more people will want to transgress those
limits to get at it. We are so hung-up about making things taboo,
you'd think there was a ban on taboos.

Look at all the government legislation and penal laws that try to
regulate the way people behave "for their own good." Add to this the
unwritten norms of taste we've set up for ourselves, and it's easy to
understand why we think almost everybody is "bad" to some extent.

Our attitudes about marijuana, especially, are ridiculous and
obsolete. Since the 1960s, it seems like just about everybody
"inhales" while in college without turning into the green psychopaths
that the anti-pot propaganda said they would.

Federal law didn't even make marijuana illegal until 1937; a few
states were earlier and the others followed suit. The ban was fallout
from the "Prohibition" on alcohol that lasted from 1920 to 1933. The
booze taboo made pot more popular and so the temperance people started
all sorts of stories about how marijuana made people crazy.

The fact is that, even with alcohol legal again, marijuana use has
increased since it was made illegal. All the evidence, whether
scientific or anecdotal, shows it is erroneous to group pot with real
illegal drugs such as cocaine and heroin, or with regulated drugs such
as amphetamines and barbiturates.

In fact, many experts and lay people alike will testify that marijuana
is not nearly as harmful to users or those around them as alcohol or
tobacco. (Some states tried banning tobacco in the late 19th century,
but the taboo made it too popular so the bans were scrapped.)

If marijuana can help a person's glaucoma, or relieve the sickness
from chemotherapy, why not let people have the option?

Human societies have been clear: Behavior that harms other people, or
has a great potential to do so, should be criminal and illegal. But
rules that govern personal habits or lifestyles that don't infringe on
others should be much less invasive.

The laws regulating alcoholic beverages are another example debated
frequently these days.

The latest national criminals are the president's daughters, Jenna and
Barbara Bush, each 19, who have been charged with crimes associated
with underage drinking. They were victimized by the tougher laws
pushed by their father when he was governor of Texas.

While the media politely backed off on the story as demanded by the
White House, the real issue is that the Bush teen-agers are not really
criminals. Our puritanical laws on the drinking age are making them
look that way.

Two decades ago Jenna and Barbara Bush would have been able to have a
margarita with their Mexican dinner without being arrested. Most
states, including New York, had rational drinking ages of 18 or 19
until the Reagan administration threatened to cut off federal highway
money if they didn't up the age to 21.

Of course, the argument about too many young people drinking and
driving was offered. The fact remains, however, that passing a law was
not going to stop the behavior (it didn't) - it was just going to turn
our teen-agers into lawbreakers and make a mockery of the law.

Each year hundreds of local residents are arrested on
underage-drinking and marijuana-possession infractions. Ask 19- or
20-year-old young adults if they believe they are criminals for
drinking a beer or smoking a joint. They'll laugh. No, instead they
probably are going to say we in America are the "Taliban" of
substance-abuse policy.

We could change course, however. Just think, if we were to make
marijuana use legal and restore a sane drinking age, it just might
take some of the fun out of practicing the illicit behavior. As much
as we like creating taboos, we like breaking them even more.