THE GOVERNMENT SAYS MARIJUANA IS BAD

"Idle reader, you can believe without any oath of mine that I would wish
this closet, as the child of my brain, to be the most beautiful, the
liveliest and the cleverest imaginable," Cervantes suggested.

"That's not bad, but a little unwieldy for an introduction," I replied.

We sat on the terrace, basking in the hot Mediterranean sun, drinking
pomegranate tea out of bone-china cups. Across from us, my friend slept in
a large mesh hammock.

"Your friend," Cervantes inquired, "he is not well?"

"He's dying," I said.

"My apologies," Cervantes said solemnly.

"He has cancer," I told him. "He is undergoing chemotherapy, but his
prognosis is not bright."

"The chemotherapy, it makes him ill, yes?" Cervantes asked.

"Very ill," I nodded. "The nausea and the pain from the disease is too much
for him to bear sometimes."

"The marijuana cigarette you gave him seemed to help," Cervantes commented.

"It's the only thing he's found that helps to relieve the side effects of
the chemotherapy," I explained. "It eases his nausea so that he can eat
regularly. It helps with the pain as well. It helps him to survive, to live
the time he has left to live."

"Yet, you risked arrest and imprisonment to get the marijuana for him,"
Cervantes observed. "And he risks the same for consuming it."

"That's true," I replied.

"Why? Why is this illegal?" Cervantes asked.

I sipped my tea. "Because our rulers decree it so. They believe that it is
their duty to protect us from ourselves. This protection takes the form of
arrest, conviction and imprisonment. With this threat of protection, our
rulers ensure that we are safe from ourselves. The justice system is used
to make sure that only substances approved by our rulers are consumed. The
rulers make sure that only beneficial substances, like alcohol, are legally
made available. Thus do they protect us and force us to act according to
their principles of self-interest."

Cervantes slowly shook his head. "I'm not sure I understand. What does all
this mean?"

I got up, walked over to the hammock and adjusted a nearby parasol to shade
the sleeping man. I sat back down and gave Cervantes a small smile.

"It means my friend is a criminal; I am a criminal," I told him.

"Oh," Cervantes said, clinking his teacup against mine. "Well and good."

And so on.