TIME FOR AMERICA TO GET REALISTIC ABOUT MARIJUANA

Americans are strangely ambivalent in their feelings about marijuana.
Nearly 100 million Americans over age 12 admit to smoking pot at least
once in their lives, and it's estimated that at least 5 percent of our
citizens use marijuana on a regular basis. And these aren't just
scruffy-looking teenagers, either -- many professional "older adults"
admit to having a dime bag or two lying around the condo.

I grew up in the pot-smoking days of the 60s and 70s, so I've heard my
share of arguments about marijuana usage. I never smoked myself, but I
knew plenty of people who did. Marijuana offenses are still common; an
estimated 700,000 arrests for possession are made in the U.S each
year. Yet a 2003 study says that 40 percent of Americans now believe
that marijuana should be treated the same as alcohol: regulated,
controlled, taxed, and kept out of the hands of children, but
decriminalized.

No other law is enforced so widely and yet deemed unnecessary by so
many people. Two upcoming cases in the U.S. Supreme Court illustrate
this double standard.

On one hand, the justices are considering how to regulate the use of
marijuana for certain medical conditions. Although there is no federal
guideline approving the use of cannabis in medical cases, at least 10
states have instituted laws protecting the rights of certain patients
to use it. Yet questions remain about growing and using marijuana for
these purposes, and what role the federal government should play, if
any, in the standardization of these laws.

On another front, the Supreme Court is also debating whether
drug-sniffing dogs can be used in routine traffic stops. The original
case involves a man who was stopped in Illinois for a minor traffic
violation, when a police drug dog alerted to his car trunk. Officers
found $250,000 worth of marijuana stashed inside. The man claims that
the use of dogs to sniff out an automobile amounts to illegal search
and seizure, since a car is presumed to be private property.

The Supreme Court justices will soon decide whether one's vehicle is
protected equally with one's home. If the court does rule that drug
dogs can't be used in traffic stops, law enforcement officials say
that there will likely be a major increase in the amount of marijuana
and other controlled substances being transported.

So after the justices do their deliberating, they might end up
deciding that it's okay to carry a few bales of pot around in your car
trunk, because that's your private property. But if a person is dying
of cancer or suffering from a debilitating disease, and they're caught
with a few joints in their pocket, they could be arrested. As Spock
would say to Captain Kirk, that's highly illogical.

It's time that we Americans make up our minds about marijuana, and how
we want it to be used and regulated in the future. Some European
countries have totally legalized cannabis, making it available in
public "coffee shops," and neither usage nor social problems have
increased. While U.S. citizens are not likely to favor total
legalization of the drug, some compromise should probably be outlined
- -- perhaps the decriminalization of minor possession charges, at least,
with standard enforcement in all 50 states. And, of course, we should
regulate the use of cannabis for medical conditions.

Some people fear that decriminalizing marijuana, or even approving its
medicinal use, would send a mixed message to young people about drugs.
Yet prescription painkillers, much more harmful and deadly, are
readily available on the street. Should we outlaw the legitimate use
of narcotic pain pills because some people abuse them, too? We also
need to consider what message we're sending by condoning the use of
alcohol and tobacco -- both of which cause far more problems,
health-wise and societally, than cannabis.

Deciding what to do with marijuana in our country is a complicated
issue, but taking the drug away from chronically-ill patients -- or
allowing huge amounts of it to remain "private" in a suspected drug
dealer's car trunk -- surely isn't the answer.

Do we want Uncle Sam in our doctors' offices, interfering with private
medical decisions made by patient and physician? It seems to me we'd
be better off to have him standing by the roadside, enabling our law
enforcement officers, both canine and human, to detain drug
traffickers. I hope our Supreme Court justices can find a way to sort
through the questions and begin to take a consistent and logical
stance on this issue