TAKING A COMMONSENSE APPROACH TO MARIJUANA

Just came back from visiting family in the Bay Area, and boy, the
smell of politics was all over the place.

I'm not talking about the circus that is the Meg Whitman-Jerry Brown
gubernatorial race, or the Carly Fiorina-Barbara Boxer Senate cat
fight, although both campaigns have stunk up the place with enough hot
air to fail a basic emissions test.

No, the pungent smell to which I refer is that of weed. Or, if you
prefer, pot. Reefer. Chronic. Whatever you call it, marijuana is on
the brink of becoming a new political reality in California.

In November, voters will decide on Proposition 19, the Regulate,
Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010. And polls indicate it will pass,
making California the first state to legalize marijuana for
recreational use.

Talk about a sentiment shift. In 1972, when Prop. 19 first made the
ballot, Californians voted it down in blazing defeat. But it's been 14
years since voters passed Prop. 215, the Compassionate Use Act, which
allows access to medicinal marijuana for chronically ill patients.
Californians have had a long time to live with legal marijuana.

With hundreds of dispensaries and growers' co-ops sprouting all over
the state, the cannabis industry has generated $100 million this year
alone. And that's not including cities like Oakland, which collects
its own sales taxes and fees.

With that kind of revenue, nobody should be declaring a war on
marijuana, they should be making peace with it. It sure looks that
way, because authorities have started to take a commonsense approach.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams recently said he wouldn't
make anybody do time who was caught possessing small amounts of pot.
He'll make them do community service instead of filling our jails -
and stressing taxpayers - with nuisance cases.

And, in one of his last acts as governor, Jon Corzine signed a bill to
make New Jersey the 14th state to allow medical marijuana. It takes
effect sometime in 2011 - if Gov. Christie doesn't come up with
another way to delay it.

Cannabis U Smack in the middle of downtown Oakland sits Oaksterdam
University, the nation's first cannabis college, which trains and
educates students for the marijuana industry.

Richard Lee founded Oaksterdam in 2007. Confined to a wheelchair after
a fall broke his spine in 1990, Lee, 47, says marijuana is the only
drug that gives him relief from excruciatingly painful back spasms. He
became a cannabis activist, and has sunk more than $1 million into
Prop. 19.

"The whole initiative is about regulation," Lee says. "I know people
don't want to pay taxes on it, but in the long run, people won't have
to be concerned with the violence that is associated with" illegal
sales.

To say I got an on-the-job cannabis education is an
understatement.

That same week, I got a, uh, whiff of the International Cannabis and
Hemp Expo at the venerable Cow Palace in San Francisco, where vendors
exhibited everything from hemp rugs to 100-year-old cannabis
prescription forms. In one corner of the exhibition hall, a presenter
even talked about "the art of consuming."

But most people flocked to the roped-off "215" area, reserved for
those who had physician-approved cannabis cards that entitled them to
marijuana samples.

As a member of the media, I was cleared to go in, though I didn't have
a card.

Samples of the best buds were everywhere, displayed in glass cases
like fine chocolates: Kryptonite. Purple Mango. OG Kush. Hindu Skunk.

More than a few vendors offered some of their choice herbs for me to
try. I just said no. After all, I was working.

But then I happened upon the Edibles section, a tantalizing array of
brownies, cookies, parfaits, and caramels.

I'm a sucker for sweets.

What the heck. I popped a piece of a brownie, as tiny as a gum drop,
into my mouth.

I was suckered all right.

It didn't take long before I realized that, wow, this isn't your
mama's pot. It's much more potent.

But as my head got foggier, something became crystal
clear.

If Prop. 19 passes, I sure wouldn't want to be on the road with some
"recreational user" who had toked on a Kryptonite joint or wolfed down
a brownie full of Hindu Skunk.

That kind of high is better left at home for the sick folks who really
need it.