Smile High City

We are having an election in California on Tuesday that has been so demonized that the Governator is counting on a low voter turnout to push through certain self-serving reforms. The Proposition system, which once seemed such a progressive experiment in popular democracy, has degenerated into an expensive exercise in special-interest advocacy and personal ego gratification for Arnold. I have yet to decide whether to participate; if I do, I'll vote no across the board. At least that will give some meaning to the votes I cast for the state legislature.

But occasionally, in some state or other, a proposition is passed that does properly put the interests of the people against those of the calcified establishment. Such an event happened in the city of Denver yesterday, when the locals decided to legalize marijuana possession. Yep, not decriminalize, legalize (albeit for amounts of an ounce or less). There were still loopholes (one's tempted to call them potholes) in the new law that would allow the Federal idiots to prosecute if they felt obligated to do so, but at least the City Fathers can lean back, light up their bongs and tell their cops to worry about real problems.

It's a bit of a surprise to hear this coming from one of the reddest of states, where anti-semitism reigns in the Air Force Academy and homophobia in its backwater suburbs like Columbine. On the other hand, a similiar pot-toleration law was passed in Telluride, where toking up after a day on the slopes--or before an Independent Film from Uzbekistan--is as rife as drinking cocoa at sunset in a Swiss chalet. I guess that a strain of libertarianism runs through the blood of Coloradans. I was amused to read some of the points of advocacy by the legalization proponents, such as pot potentially saving lives because some folks would choose its use over that of liquor and not go off driving drunk on weekends. Though I personally prefer the effects of pot over those of alcohol, I'm not sure that most people would ever bother to choose; they might smoke a joint as a chaser to a Black Russian and get really fucked up. I've been there, too.

Small issues aside, this is at least a hopeful sign that islands of sanity are popping up regarding our utterly wrongheaded and destructive Federal drug policy. It will be a slow process for intelligence and thoughtfulness to prevail over narrowminded hysteria and misinformation--I mean, look at Iraq. And no politician I'm aware of has had the courage or gumption to state unequivocally that the Emperor has no clothes on this issue. The ingrained power of the liquor lobby and decades of erroneous propaganda defining pot as a "gateway drug" still hold sway.

But meanwhile suffering will continue. The Feds continue to pour borrowed funds into drug interdiction programs, not to mention feeding and housing thousands of prisoners whose offense was lighting up, and whose lives have been ruined by their unfair incarceration. Cancer victims and others wracked by wretched pain, whose agony can be greatly alleviated with medicinal pot, have to elude the DEA watchdogs or simply put up with their discomfort.

It would be interesting for once to hear one rational of the drug enforcers that would actually justify the Draconian prosecution of the marijuana users. Maybe something to do with keeping pot out of the hands of children. I don't disagree--kids and teenagers have enough hormonal problems without getting buzzed by THC and zoning out of their studies. But regulation and provision of pot, say, in state stores, like liquor, may actually reduce pot use among kids, because they would be denied sales, and street vendors would become scarce when there is no profitable black market. I'm not so naive to say that kids won't occasionally sneak some grass from their parents' stashes--but that happens now anyway.

I still maintain that of all our screwed-up national policies, the War on Drugs is perhaps the most pointless and wasteful. At least one can cynically point out economic advantages to our Mideast incursions, however short-term they may be. But our drug legislation laws are inane, utterly arbitrary and--given the "legal" alcohol's nefarious effects on our nation's health--mind-bogglingly hypocritical.