I Was Just Thinking...

Since 12 states have recently legalized or decriminalized Marijuana in the past few months, and some states are still putting folks in the Gray Bar Hotel for possessing a small, personal amount, it seems to me we're on the way to a slow-motion, legal train wreck of monumental proportions.

Watch any episode of "Cops" or "LivePD," or "Rocky Mountain Law," and you'll have a front-row seat for a never-ending succession of motorists caught up in the black hole of "pot politics."  A car is pulled over for a broken license plate light and before it's over, the cop has found a gram or two - and on occasion a kilo or two - of Maryjowanna and the guy is hooked up and headed for the slammer.

Now, it's true the perp shouldn't have been in possession of pot, nor any other illegal or controlled substances.  But they are.  And our jails are filled to overflowing with "shouldn't haves."  There are STILL inmates in Texas prisons appealing 40-year, hard-time sentences for personal amounts of pot.

Recent FBI stats tell us that fully one-half of our nearly two million imprisoned inmates are there because of drug convictions.  One half!  However, does it make any sense, fiscal or otherwise, to lock up those whose only offense is to consume a weed that the vast majority of our population considers to be no more hazardous than a Bud Light?  Especially when the stuff could be legal just across the state line? 

Now, I must mention that pot is considered illegal by  the Federal Government.  Right.  These dozen states have "legalized" it while the Feds keep it illegal.  And, as we know from the 10th Amendment, what the Fed says, goes.  Except when it doesn't, I guess...


So those who are flouting Federal law while staying within state law, run the risk of having their piggy bank broken at the whim of our Attorney General.  I don't think it will happen, however, given that these dozen states are realizing windfall profits from the taxes on sales of "devil weed."  

Hummmmm.  It's bad, until you find out it's good.  

But wait?  What about all those who were incarcerated while the tax collector was finding Jesus?  While we were learning that we've been lied to by our Gummint for the past six decades?  While we were in some cases unfairly targeting the "least among us" for prosecution.  

I recommend we get our collective s**t together and decide to make pot legal, from sea to shining sea, and to open the jails and the prisons and send all the petty pot perps home, or to make it a Class Twelve Felony and lock up everyone and throw away the key.  

What do you think?  If you agree with me, pass this along.  Maybe we can start some sort of citizens' movement...