By Maryjane Cannabis
As anyone who’s recently attended a rock n’ roll concert knows, the use of marijuana among people over 50 is not decreasing. In fact, some studies indicate that more baby boomers are smoking pot than ever before.
We need pot to ease the aches and pains of aging.
No wonder. We no longer have to lie to our kids about what we did back in the sixties, most of us don’t have to worry about being tested at work, and we need pot to ease the aches and pains of aging. You’d think that since we do most of the voting, we would have moved on already and legalized marijuana.
Our parents worried that marijuana was dangerous.
Swayed by the influence of “Reefer Madness,” our kids really don’t care, smoke pot or don’t. The drugs of choice on college campuses today are alcohol and prescription medications. In New York City more people are arrested and accused of possessing small amounts of marijuana than on any other crime. In California, growing a single marijuana plant at home is a felony.
Marijuana should not be approached as a criminal justice problem.
At the same time, Gil Kerilkowske, Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy advocates that marijuana smoking should not be approached as a criminal justice problem. So the jails are full of offenders, and Grandma and Grandpa in 16 states have visited a physician to get themselves a “medical marijuana” card so they can go buy their pot and enjoy it in the privacy of their own homes. And they’ll tell you, it’s a heck of a lot easier than having to hustle some on the street corner, exactly what the boomers in the rest of country are left to do.
Marijuana should be legalized, regulated and taxed
Who do you think gets a better product? Not to mention that if cannabis were legalized, and then regulated and taxed like other commercial goods, it would bring in huge dollar amounts to the federal government. It is estimated that pot is the largest cash crop in California, with annual revenues approaching $14 billion. A 10% pot tax in California would yield $1.4 billion and thousands of badly needed new jobs in agriculture, packaging, marketing and advertising. On a national level, it’s estimated that the tax revenue generated from marijuana would be upwards of $2.4 billion annually if it were taxed like everyday goods. And as high as $6.2 billion annually if it were taxed like alcohol and tobacco!
40th Anniversary of the war on drugs
Legalize Marijuana? Are you kidding me? Forty years ago President Nixon declared the “War on Drugs.” In the 1980s President Reagan and Congress moved away from balanced drug policies to futile efforts to control foreign imports, efforts that led to the escalation of drug-related violence. Clinton didn’t inhale, Obama did.
Last week, President Carter in his New York Times op-ed opined, “”In a message to Congress in 1977, I said the country should decriminalize the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana…I also cautioned against filling our prisons with young people who were no threat to society, and summarized by saying: ‘Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself.’ ”
Food tastes better, music sounds better and sex is better.
So, what are we still waiting for? We’re tired of waiting, we’re getting older yet we know that when you hand us a joint suddenly food tastes better, the music sounds better and sex is better. What will it take to get the government to wake up and smell the brownies baking? It’s high time!
Maryjane Cannabis (a pseudonym) is a journalist who stopped smoking pot for 25 years. Now her nest is empty, her joints ache, and she lives in a state that doesn’t allow “medical” marijuana. She has a friend
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