'MEDICINAL' POT ISSUE CLOUDED WITH A FICTION

The whole quasi-legality of "medical" marijuana is a joke. Let's
acknowledge that much at the top.

The vast majority of people who get their marijuana card get the same
medicinal value from a shot or two of scotch.

If medical marijuana truly has a place, it's at the real pharmacy,
not the pungent place with brownies, ice cream and jars of Maui Wowie and such.

The legalistic gyrations of the state Legislature that treat this
fiction as legitimate only miss the point. Dr. Feel Good will work
around the wink-wink followup care requirements just fine.

The joke is on the politicians pretending with a straight face that
there's something truly medicinal about this issue.

We all know -- or should -- that the pot dispensaries are closer to
their cousins the liquor stores than any pharmacy.

The real issue is whether marijuana should be legalized and regulated
like alcohol.

Ah, different question, and where all this is headed in time.

State law has progressed to where municipal leaders can decide
whether to have pot shops within their borders, and provide for
referendums of the voting citizenry on the question.

Vail and Gypsum have banned the things, and Avon is on the cusp of
it. Minturn has none. Eagle has allowed them, and the Eagle County
commissioners are considering the best solution for the question: Let
the voters weigh in come November.

Prohibition of alcohol had an amendment to the U.S. Constitution
devoted to it. If anything, the sentiment against alcohol was
stronger than against marijuana. And the evil drink's allure inspired
another amendment ending the Prohibition.

A lot of crime similar to the illicit marijuana trade suddenly
vanished when you could buy a bottle or six pack at the corner store.

As a practical matter, that's a path that pot use appears to be
tracking. The War on Drugs didn't stamp it out any more successfully
than throwing the weight of the U.S. Constitution did against alcohol.

There's a weight of inevitability, an elephant in the room, that
permeates this whole silly dialogue about "medical" marijuana.

A nice start would be simply acknowledging what we're really talking about here.