The American Medical Association recently reversed its long-standing position and urged the federal government to loosen the classification of Marijuana and clear the path for more medical marijuana use and clinical research.

OK–great–but for real: why isn’t pot entirely legal already?

Likely because of a Puritanical law-and-order ethos that pervades the generations of policymakers who have curried favor with frightened and uninteresting voters by creating a make-believe issue out of cannabis, is my theory.

Lumping pot in with other Schedule I drugs (the highest classification for a controlled substance)  like heroin and LSD is so completely absurd that it’s like lumping alcohol in with setting your face on fire.

Setting your face on fire is clearly the more dangerous high between the two.

In fact, based on my completely anecdotal observations, I would posit that alcohol is absolutely, positively a worse drug than marijuana.

In my line of work (i.e. writer), I’ve known a ton of potheads (i.e. writers) and alcoholics (i.e. other writers). No one gets in fights when they’re high. They don’t hurt anyone, they don’t do anything. They sit on the couch, eat Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and giggle at infomercials for four hours. “Normal” people like tax accountants and nurses are more dangerous.

The Obama administration has already said that it will not concern the justice department with chasing down potheads, which makes it that much easier in states where weed is quickly becoming de facto legal.

The next step will likely come from California, which is drawing ever closer to legalization and taxation of pot–cutting it out of the business portfolio of Mexican drug cartels and raising $1.4 billion for the cash-strapped state in the bargain.

The entire ill-conceived war on drugs is an experiment in legislating morality that borders on outright farce. As Chris Rock–probably one of the great thinkers of our time if you get right down to it–once pointed out, people will do anything to get high.

You wanna make drugs illegal? Well, people will just let their excrement ferment in the sun and then take a big whiff.

I am not making that up.

And what are parents or the government or the D.A.R.E. officers supposed to tell kids now?

That if you smoke weed, you’ll never amount to anything? You’ll never be a record-breaking Olympic swimmer? The President of the United States (”I inhaled. That was the point.”)? A published author?

Please. Somebody get me some Ben & Jerry’s.

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