Cooler Heads Not Prevailing

Those hoping for a more relaxed and mellow stance on federal drug policy under the Obama administration should probably just light up and go back to watching your Squidbillies DVDs. Our new drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, has stated unequivocally that the government sees marijuana as a dangerous and harmful drug. "Legalization," Kerlikowske says, "is not in the president's vocabulary, and it's not in mine." I'll let the fact that he used a word to say that word isn't in his vocabulary speak for itself. Maybe he just doesn't know what "vocabulary" means. But a subsequent statement leaves no doubt that this guy's an insufferable idiot. He went on to claim that marijuana "has no medicinal benefit". This is just patently false, as evidenced by the many Californians who are prescribed marijuana for chronic pain legally under state law. And it's an especially ballsy thing to say while raiding marijuana farms in California. The facts of the matter are that marijuana has medicinal benefit, is no more harmful than alcohol or tobacco, and its legalization would provide billions of dollars in revenue for states like California that desperately need it. As I've said before, I'm a pussy who can't inhale anything without suffering a terrible headache, so marijuana isn't for me. But this bullshit has to stop. Our federal drug policies are baseless, debilitating, and the last thing we should be focusing on when the rest of the country is falling apart financially. Kerlikowske, congratulations. You're a dick. More details here.