AMERICA HAS A POT PROBLEM

After alcohol, marijuana is America's drug of choice. Studies show
half of today's population has tried smoking pot and the other half
might if they knew how to get it.

Despite the government's endless war on drugs, recreational marijuana
is the biggest illegal cash crop in the world. And there's a reason
for that.

If you're north of age 60, you might see pot as the gateway drug that
lures our unsuspecting youth into a lifetime of heavy drug addiction.
If you're south of that line, not so much.

Today's middle-age grandparents grew up around marijuana in high
school and college, and some used it with the same discretion as they
did a six-pack of beer. Some continued to smoke, others did not.

Many, however, didn't consider it a crime. That attitude is apparent
in the gradual decriminalization of the weed to the point where it's
an inconvenient misdemeanor and a waste of good police manpower. We
know it's against the law, but we don't want anybody to go to jail for
it.

Thus we have a problem in America.

What to do about pot?

No Harm, No Foul

Just recently, photos of Olympic swimming champ Michael Phelps hitting
a bong at a party on the University of South Carolina campus in
Columbia were released to the world.

Phelps, who won eight gold medals in Beijing, promptly apologized and
has been suspended for three months. A slap on the wrist.

Closer to home, three College of Charleston basketball players and a
team manager recently were ticketed after campus police found them in
a vehicle that contained marijuana. The manager took the rap, the
simple possession charges against the players were dropped and
everybody went back to playing basketball.

No harm, no foul.

Meanwhile, one of the biggest indoor marijuana farms in history was
discovered a few miles up the road in Orangeburg. These guys could do
some serious time.

Truth is, we pretend the users of the product are innocent and punish
the entrepreneurs who found a way to make a buck. It's kind of the way
we treat prostitution. Seems a little un-American, but that's the law.

Reefer Madness

Potheads and other proponents have been trying to legalize marijuana
for years without much success. They seem to lose focus. Don't know
why.

Realistically, all those hippies from the '60s probably won't live to
see legislative reform.

When we weren't looking, an ethical and legal line was subjectively
drawn somewhere between the double scotch on the rocks after work and
a joint before dinner.

But for the millions who smoke pot, it's apparently not that hard to
find. Everybody knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody.

Unless you have an active drug-testing policy at your work place, a
lot of your co-workers could be casual users.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Except the illegal
part.

Pot smokers are nothing like the wild and crazy people the government
depicted in the 1936 propaganda film "Reefer Madness." Mostly, they
laugh and eat.

Police won't admit it, but if everybody smoked pot instead of drinking
alcohol, society would be a much safer place to live. Less crime. More
naps.

So as our population transitions from the post-World War II era to the
post-Vietnam/Gulf War demographic, public figures are usually able to
survive the occasional brush with marijuana use.

Is that good?

Is it bad?

It just is, man.