WE'RE DOPES NOT TO OK MARIJUANA

I used to think that I wanted to be famous. Really famous. I wanted to
be so famous that kids dressed up as me for Halloween. I wanted to be
so famous that Dale Chihuly would beg me for permission to create a
life-sized ornate art-bong in my likeness. Not that I would know
anything about that sort of thing, of course.

Well, that's not fully true. I know a bit about the marijuana thing. I
know, or rather, I believe that the stuff should be undemonized,
decriminalized and, yes, even fully legalized. If marijuana were
legal, about a billion Christmas present dilemmas would be solved.

The snack industry would go through the roof. Prime time television
might even be bearable.

The concept of legal pot may be too "Reefer Madness" for some. After
all, if marijuana were legal, people everywhere would be running
around high. Guess what? They already are. People whom you would never
peg as pot users lead perfectly normal lives, and are able to maintain
and function within the boundaries of an otherwise legal and healthy
lifestyle. They bag your groceries. They write the novels that you
enjoy. They create the artwork that you admire. They are scholars,
chefs, woodworkers.

They use marijuana just like someone might use aspirin, or sleeping
aids. Some use it the way others might use coffee, as a little
pick-me-up in the morning or afternoon. Or mid-afternoon or mid-to
late-afternoon. Or that time of day when it's no longer afternoon, but
not quite dusk. And there are those who need it, not because they
can't face the boss without it, but because they live with chronic
pain from injury or disease. This has been going on for about, oh,
12,000 years.

Most recently, The Scripps Research Institute in California reported
that THC (the main active ingredient in marijuana) inhibits the enzyme
responsible for the formation of amyloid plaque -- the primary marker
for Alzheimer's disease -- in a manner "considerably superior" to
government-approved Alzheimer's drugs such as donepezil and tacrine.
And guess what again? All you have to do is stick some seeds in soil
and nurture that plant that pops its little green self out.

And speaking of sticking stuff in the ground and letting it grow, it
might be prudent to start considering an industrial hemp industry for
Washington. Before you get your knickers in a twist, know that
industrial hemp products (seed, fiber, etc.) and smokable marijuana
(flowering tops and leaves) are distinctly different. They are
scientifically different and are cultivated in very different ways.

Hemp is easy to grow, and has little or no need for pesticides or
herbicides. The economic value associated with hemp production could
be huge. What a boost for our farming industry, not to mention the
ecological benefits of using hemp to replace tree fiber for paper
production. Weyerhaeuser, are you listening? The timber industry could
be leaders in the hemp revolution. Imagine cultivating a supergreen
hemp forest, year after year, providing humans with oodles of long,
strong and absorbent fibers. Weyerhaeuser could set a fine example by
doing something like that, and it might even kind of right some of the
eco-wrongs the company has committed in the past, like how the Philip
Morris Web site provides handy helpful guidelines on how to quit smoking.

Check out the list of countries (in alphabetical order, even) that
embrace industrial hemp production: Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile,
China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary,
Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Russia,
Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey. Ukraine, Egypt, Korea,
Portugal and Thailand also produce hemp, but I couldn't be bothered to
alphabetize.

Hawaii had a permit to grow hemp on a quarter-acre plot as an
experiment. The project has closed due to DEA-related snags and
funding troubles. Aside from that little chunk of fun, the United
States is the only industrialized nation in the world that refuses to
recognize the value of industrial hemp.

That's almost as embarrassing as our so-called war on
drugs.