POT OR NOT? A MODEST PROPOSAL

"Daddy, what's that immense brown cloud squatting over campus today?"
my daughter might have asked gesturing in the direction of UC Santa
Cruz last Monday -- April 20, I think it was. She didn't say that,
because she's 14 and is convinced I'm the biggest nimrod on God's
green earth. But she could have. And, just in case, I had an answer ready.

"Well, sweetheart, it's so incredibly blistering hot today that the
students up at UCSC have decided to create their own comforting fog
to dissipate the intense sun. Aren't they clever?"

The truth, of course, is not so heroic. Monday, we all know, was
"4/20," a celebration of the psychoactive properties of an
indomitable weed known as marijuana. It is America's new national
holiday, at least to the Cheech & Chong demographic -- Pass It Over
instead of Passover. And nowhere in America was it celebrated with
more relish than on the cannibis -- uh, sorry, I meant campus -- of UCSC.

This year, 4/20 -- named for the time of day your average pothead
finally gets out of bed I kid! -- carries a feeling of momentousness.
Astonishingly, the issue of legalization -- or, at least
decriminalization -- is on the table after decades when it wasn't
even in the room. With a crippling economic recession crying out for
new revenue streams and the first U.S. president in office who can
distinguish the smell of ganja from that of burning tires, it's
beginning to look like this year's 4/20 may have been the last of the
Era of Reefer Madness. Who knows, maybe this time next year, it'll
look like Lollapalooza -- beer ads, wristbands, Sheryl Crow, the whole lot.

Yes, I have a take on the legalization of weed and, it's likely to
cheese off the absolutists on both extremes on the issue -- which,
after coin collecting, is, in fact, my favorite hobby.

I'm dead set against the insanity of pot prohibition, which has led
to too many Kafka-esque legal quagmires to list, and lots of needless
suffering. If cops and county sheriffs are coming out for
decriminalization, isn't it time we listened?

But I'm for limited legalization. Try it on a test population and see
if it works. My plan? Cheap, legal and unlimited pot for anyone 65 or over.

Grass for Grannies. Reefer for Geezers. Whatever you want to call it,
it will be a great pilot program that will reorient marijuana in the
popular culture and put it where it belongs -- with the demographic
in greatest need of a little chilling out.

First off, let's air an unpopular opinion, at least in these parts:
Pot isn't for young people, and we should strongly work to dissuade
the kids from toking. And here's why: Dope absolutely murders
ambition. You know it and I know it. And by ambition, I mean any
disciplined effort to achieve a specific goal. That could mean
striving for political, artistic or financial greatness. It could
mean brushing your teeth every day. In either case, weed convinces
you that nothing is so important that it can't wait for the 35th
straight playing of Pink Floyd's "Animals." Pot turns "stopping to
smell the roses" into dragging a mattress into the rose garden and
having your mail forwarded there.

Remember back when Bill Clinton on the campaign trail said "I didn't
inhale"? Well, I believe him. Knowing that guy's appetites, if he had
inhaled, he'd today be lying on someone's couch in Arkansas eating
peanut butter out of the jar and giggling at SpongeBob. We need young
people on the ball, making plans, busting their tails getting that
degree or starting that business. We need people in their 30s and
40s, hustling and working hard and raising children, and people in
their 50s to act like adults and be leaders.

But after that? Hello, retirement! Who's going to argue that after a
lifetime of hard work, older folks don't deserve to opt out of our
silly moralizing on marijuana? They already know something about
chronic pain. They may as well be familiar with "the Chronic" as well.

For one thing, it would mellow out our seniors -- "Hey you kids, you
can roll around on the lawn. Who cares? Just stay away from my other
grass." It could save them money -- who would want to spend all that
dough on a Caribbean cruise when you could have just as much fun at
home eating cake frosting out of the can. It would make the
inevitable process of aging just a bit less aggravating, don't you think?

Granted, the commercials on the evening news would start to look a
little weird. And Ben & Jerry would probably start putting Metamucil
in their ice cream. But think of the economic benefits -- the booming
demand for old Dean Martin records, low-sodium Cheetos, draw-string
pants. And you would not be able to get a table at Denny's.

You go see your parents, and instead of them talking about goiters
and irritable bowels, they'll go on about the levels of meaning in
"The Wizard of Oz." And, honestly, it might even make their house
smell a little better. You'll just have to ask which brownies are
which when the little ones come over.

And think of the multiplying effect of all those baked elders. Every
kid over 11 knows that anything old people do is, by definition, ipso
facto, profoundly uncool. "Smoke pot? Gross! Yeah, then we can put on
our muumuus and go up and down the grocery store aisles in those
motorized shopping carts, looking for specials on bran flakes. Please!"

In this superficial, youth-oriented, looks-obsessed culture, older
people too often get the shaft. This plan gives people a tangible
reward for getting to the golden years and discourages kids from
taking up the habit not by criminalization, but by
"de-coolification." Then, maybe our college campuses can get back to
educating kids and 4/20 will be a special TV event starring Debbie
Reynolds and Regis Philbin, right there between "Law and Order" and
"CSI: Haight-Ashbury."