TIME TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

Marijuana can get silly. Sure, it can do damage when it becomes a
constant alternative to reality. But in too many ways it has become a
slapstick prop, causing people in uniform to run around and around
until they fall down. Or run into each other. And that's without
smoking it.

The funniest movie about marijuana is Reefer Madness. It features an
actor who sucks madly on a joint, then turns into a crazed killer.

That image is decades old and comically out of touch. But it is one
that some people cling to even today in trying to give marijuana a
place in the war on drugs that is totally unjustified.

The best thing about this product of the earth is that it makes
people who feel lousy feel better. People with AIDS, multiple
sclerosis, PTSD, all kinds of painful conditions, find relief in the
smoke.

There is no official medical explanation for why puffing makes the
pain go away. It just works better than manufactured pharmaceuticals.
In some enlightened corners, including Rhode Island, lawmakers have
made medical marijuana legally available. It improves lives.

It also gets people sent to the slammer. The very plant that brings
relief for some can bring prison time for others.

It is part of the schizoid place marijuana continues to hold. People
in jump suits still jump from police vans in pursuit of it. And
people in private corners still fire it up to get through the day.

It is way past time for some common sense, for some balance between
the brain-twisting devil weed and reality. Marijuana has drawn
resources and consumed court time and cell space to an extent far
beyond its threat to public well-being. People have suffered
ridiculous penalties for possession of something with less
mind-altering potential than a six-pack of beer.

Which is why it is so good to see one of the brightest minds in
Congress offer some sanity.

Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts said in a statement yesterday that
he will introduce legislation to remove federal penalties for the
personal use of marijuana.

"For highly trained federal law enforcement agents to spend time
prosecuting people for smoking marijuana is a diversion of scarce
resources from their job of protecting public safety," said Frank.

Hallelujah!

Frank is saying what a lot of people, including some police officers,
have been saying for a long time -- to make a federal case out of
smoking marijuana is "wholly disproportionate to the activity involved."

"Criminalizing choices that adults make because we think they are
unwise, when the choices involved have no effect on the rights of
others, is not appropriate in a free society," said Frank.

It sure isn't. To impose archaic drug laws on recreational, at-home
marijuana smokers is a waste of all kinds of things, including time
and money and gas for whatever urban assault vehicles are used to
reach the designated drug den.

One of the best things about what Frank is proposing is that it would
lift the ridiculous threat of arrest from those who take their
marijuana for pain. For even though Rhode Island and other places
have had the compassion and good sense to approve the use of medical
marijuana, federal laws do not allow for it.

A multiple sclerosis sufferer could, for example, buy marijuana under
the state law, then walk down the street and get busted by the feds.

It's not likely to happen, but it is an example of what a silly
muddle marijuana is in.

Barney Frank is trying to make it a little less silly.