FREE YOUR MIND - REALLY?

So now those latter-day hippies in Denver who engineered the passage
of a Denver ordinance in violation of state laws prohibiting the
possession of marijuana are taking that next step.

They're working on a "citizen initiative" to effect back-door
legalization of pot in the state. They claim, through their adopted
acronym, that imbibing in an addictive, mind-altering drug is "safer."

Safer than what?

They imply that it's a safer recreational drug than alcohol. But
that's a problematical comparison in itself. The very definition of
"safer" is subjective. Stoned is stoned, man. Doesn't matter how you
get there, a brain running on mind-altering chemicals isn't safe by
any standard.

The Denver Post ran a series about a clutch of suburban soccer moms
who gather regularly in the garage of an upscale ranchette to do a
little weed after they've stashed their offspring in a safer
environment. One was quoted as worrying about how she was going to
rationalize this when the kids found out.

I got news for that biddy-brain. The kids already know. If the three
or four of them are fuming up the place a couple times a week,
everyone else in the house can smell it. Makes me wonder about the
husbands. And the odds are great that, by the time the kids have
reached middle school, they've smelled it somewhere else and will
certainly recognize it.

She won't have to rationalize it - they will accept pot's illegal use
as OK and she'll be able to hear their explanation at the police
station after they're busted at a party. City, state and federal
officers are still enforcing existing valid laws, lady.

Another of these alter-adolescents said that it "frees the mind". It
does that, all right. It frees the mind of all rational thought. It
relieves the mind of the burden of cognitive recognition, of all the
restrictions of 21st century reality.

She can float around in her own perfect little universe, free of the
responsibility of household and motherhood. And when the school calls
to say that her child has been injured in a playground accident,
she'll be driving to the school under the influence. Or the whole
clutch will go, and have a really good time explaining their joint
(pun intended) euphoria to the officer who stops them for running a
red light. But her mind will be free, for a little while.

As a police officer I heard these and myriad other rationalizations.
And I had to arrest combative kids whose "freed" minds refused to
accept that urinating in the middle of a crowded dance floor was not
acceptable conduct. Or explain to a stoned kid after the wreck that
driving in reverse on a one-way street is not legal, even if the car
was pointed in the right direction. And I had to explain to parents
that handcuffs are necessary when anyone, even their darling,
believes he's Cassius Clay and tries to fight an officer twice his
age and strength.

Then there's the rationale that legalizing pot will provide an
abundant tax base with which to control its use and sale. Poppycock.
If it were taxed at the exorbitant rate that alcohol is, it would
increase its illegal use, requiring more cops, prosecutors and judges
in inverse proportion to its tax return.

Unlike alcohol, it can be produced in any back yard, basement or
attic. Enforcement of its taxation would only compound existing laws
prohibiting its production. And scientists have long recognized it as
an addictive gateway drug, leading to the use of harder drugs and
more profound addiction. And freer minds, I guess.