LEGALIZING MARIJUANA IS JUST A MATTER OF TIME

Time magazine recently published an interesting statistic: 5.1
percent of Americans aged 55 to 59 smoke marijuana regularly -- a
major jump from 2002, when 1.6 percent of Americans aged 55 to 59
admitted to smoking pot regularly.

The magazine attributed the rise to the aging of the baby boom
generation. And you can look at the stat four ways:

One, it shows marijuana use is not just for the young and wild. We
can only assume the age bracket -- where AARP membership and senior
discounts begin -- was considered significant because it says old
people are smoking.

Two, it's a tsk-tsk about how baby boomers just won't stop their
silly habits.

Three, it shows a decline in marijuana usage: Back when boomers were
young, half of us were smoking pot. So if just 5 percent of us are
still smoking, usage has dropped dramatically.

Or fourth: The handwriting on the wall is getting bigger. We need to
make pot legal. You don't want Grandma and Grandpa doing hard time,
do you?

We get closer to legalizing pot all the time.

A national poll in October found that 44 percent of Americans support
legalization -- up from 36 percent in 2005. Fourteen states have made
marijuana legal for medical purposes since California became the
first in 1996. Fourteen other states are now considering changes in
their laws against marijuana, ranging from allowing medical marijuana
to decriminalization.

Florida is not among those 28 states, though polls have shown that a
majority of Florida voters support medical marijuana. A group is
trying to get medical marijuana on the Florida ballot this fall.
Here's hoping they succeed.

This is what some of us always believed would happen with marijuana
laws: People would realize the folly of keeping marijuana illegal and
change the laws. I think we imagined it would happen sooner than it
did and in more sweeping federal fashion, rather than the slow
trickle of state-by-state.

But as you get older -- say 55 to 59 -- you realize that's how things
work. Look at health care reform. Ever since Franklin Roosevelt,
there have been efforts to institute some form of national health
insurance. Now, 60 years later, President Obama finally succeeded.
Sometimes, it takes decades for the steady plodding of logic and
determined supporters to get the right thing done.

Ending the prohibition on marijuana is about taking it out of the
dark of criminal activity and profit and bringing it into the light
of the nation's daily commerce. It's just so logical.

If we tax marijuana, government will have much more revenue -- for
things such as health care. If we regulate marijuana, it will reduce
its availability to children -- who can get it illegally from friends
and acquaintances. If we eliminate the penalties for possession, we
can stop the unfair and costly jailing of people -- whose only crime
is preferring marijuana to alcohol when they relax.

If we legalize marijuana, we can make marijuana available nationwide
to those who need it medically -- and eliminate such farces as
Wal-Mart firing a Michigan employee who failed a drug test after
using marijuana prescribed by his doctor.

And if we legalize, we can help stop the drug cartel violence, which
is ripping apart Mexico and spreading into the U.S. According to the
Marijuana Policy Project, the largest marijuana reform organization
in the U.S., more than 18,000 people have been killed in Mexico by
drug violence since 2006. The U.S. Justice Department reports that
cartels do business in 230 American cities. Annually, 60 percent to
70 percent of marijuana sold by cartels is sold in the U.S. It's an
annual $8 billion to $10 billion industry for the cartels, whose
violence will continue as long as they are making money.

We will never eradicate the human affection for intoxication, as was
proved by the failed efforts of alcohol prohibition in the early 20th
century. But we can stop the violence and costs associated with
marijuana prohibition by taking its distribution out of the hands of
criminals -- and stop criminalizing those who use it.

It's the right thing to do. If only to save Grandma and Grandpa from
embarrassment.