Pubdate: Sun, 26 Apr 2009
Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel (CA)
Column: Baine Street
Copyright: 2009 Santa Cruz Sentinel
Contact: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/submitletters
Website: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/394
Author: Wallace Baine
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Marijuana - California)

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." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake