President Bush Nailed It:

OUR REAL ADDICTION IS TO OIL

The U.S. oil and gas industry wants marijuana to be legal. That's how
it looks to me.

The CEOs of Exxon Mobil, Chevron and other oil companies haven't
swapped their business suits for tie-dyed outfits and jewelry shaped
like reefer leaves.

But the industry's support for legalizing pot seems clear from the
pattern of its political stances in the arguments over the energy
crisis. Everyone knows the range of solutions that could be applied.
The arguments boil down to what role the federal government should
play.

Those who want government action call for higher fuel-efficiency
standards for vehicles and a much higher excise tax on gasoline, to
encourage conservation of fossil fuels. The government could also be
more assertive with tax incentives to develop alternatives such as
solar and wind power, more efficient appliances and buildings and mass
transportation.

The oil and gas companies, their industry groups and think tanks, take
the opposite stance. They insist that government regulations only
interfere with satisfying good old consumer demand. Their mantra? If
Americans want to keep on burning huge amounts of oil and gas, let the
free market handle it - no matter what the consequences.

Consumers rule? OK. More than 14 million Americans have smoked pot in
the past month, according to a recent survey by the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services. Nearly 100 million have tried it sometime
in their lives, and no doubt most "sometimers" think it's nothing the
government should stick its nose into.

The pro-pot sentiment is clear in the 12 states where voters have
approved medical marijuana initiatives since 1996. Those popular laws,
passed mostly in Western states, allow doctors to prescribe pot with a
fair degree of leeway. Eleven states, including some without the
medical provision, have effectively decriminalized marijuana for all
adult consumers, treating them no more seriously than drivers who
commit minor traffic violations. Voters in some cities, such as
Denver, have gone so far as to eliminate all penalties for adults who
possess small amounts.

The federal government stubbornly keeps on pursuing pot consumers
everywhere, even though studies show marijuana is a lighter drug than
alcohol. Pot smoking does not seem to lead to the use of heavier
drugs, and does not cause crime waves. According to pot consumer
websites, luminaries in both political parties admit they've smoked
the herb, from Bill Clinton and Al Gore to Newt Gingrich and New York
City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, along with movie stars, musicians, and
bestselling authors such as Stephen King. King says, "Marijuana should
not only be legal, I think it should be a cottage industry."

Meanwhile, the country's "addiction" to oil and gas, as recovering
oilman George W. Bush described it in his State of the Union speech,
has far more negatives. Unlike the oil and gas industry, potheads
don't want to abolish environmental protections so that drilling rigs
can invade the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and wild lands in the
Rocky Mountains.

They don't want to build new port facilities to receive shiploads of
explosive liquefied natural gas, which would ramp up power plants to
heat and cool the epidemic of trophy homes. They're not sending the
Montana National Guard to Iraq to secure their supply lines. All they
want is a simple grower's light and a closet, or a few square feet of
garden.

On the crucial issue of global warming, all the pot-puffers' smoke
adds up to a tiny fraction of the tailpipe emissions from 24 million
gas-guzzling SUVs, not to mention all the inefficient pickup trucks,
diesel semis, snowmobiles and ATVs. And in a directly lethal
comparison, 40,000 Americans die each year in wrecks of oil-propelled
vehicles; it's difficult to find evidence of a single death due to
smoking pot.

Over and over, the oil and gas industry says that whatever consumers
want, they should get. They want the federal government to stay out of
that equation.

If the industry applied its might and reasoning to the government's
denial of pot smokers, it would tip the scales of justice and settle
that issue once and for all. The question should be posed to the CEOs
and their followers: If they don't support legalizing marijuana,
aren't they merely self-serving - thinking of their corporate profits
- in their stance on the energy issue?