One of the Kansas City news channels has been running a series on legal pot in Colorado. I don't like the idea of the Drug War, with its corruption of law enforcement and the loss of freedom. Still, it can't be a good thing to have a large percentage of the population in a perpetual stupor. The marijuana candy and cookie products are a real scary thing, too. Just the sort of thing some a-hole prankster would slip into a trick or treater's bag or put on a tray at the office party. But, that's why we have a federal system, so different states can make their own decisions and learn from the results.

Equating marijuana legalization with having "a large percentage of the population in a perpetual stupor" seems to me hyperbolic and maybe a tad alarmist, but unfortunately for me that sort of attitude may still be pretty pervasive in our country. Why should anyone assume that people who consume marijuana would be any less responsible in legally using their drug of choice than those who drink alcohol are? I do somewhat agree with your point about the potential dangers of cannabinoid-infused confections, although the a-hole pranksters surely don't need weed to be legal in order go around tainting things if they are so inclined; it would just afford them another vector (my point being I don't think there is going to be a rash of new incidences of this sort of thing due to a relaxation of marijuana laws). Besides, who wants to waste their recreational budget on pranks? Stuff's expensive!!! I think the bigger danger would be small children getting into their parents' "adult" candies and chowing down, much as has been known to happen with those colorful little dishwasher detergent packs that are so easy for kids to pop into their mouths. In both cases and, again, as with America's favorite legal drug, alcohol, it is the parents' responsibility to prevent their children from accessing those products. We don't blame the bullet, do we, when the kid grabs the gun out of his mom's purse and shoots her dead in Wal-Mart?

I thought this was about cattle being driven to refigerator wagon, but I later found out "reefer" is another name for cannabis. So far nobody has killed himself or herself by overdosing on pot, and the biggest dangers are driving car or operating heavy machinery while stoned. That is not a reason to prohibit marijuana, but a reason to prohibit irresponsible and dangerous behaviour.

Cannabis should be legalized and treated like alcohol - taxed and sold under legislation.

Hi Susanna. Yes, "reefer" can mean either a marijuana cigarette or marijuana more generally. I can only imagine how this song must have read with the connotation you had in mind. You have expressed the salient points quite tidily, and it is so frustrating that the double standards persist in the US for cannabis and alcohol. Much of it is rooted in 1970s legislation that placed marijuana into a federally-defined category of controlled substances ("Schedule I") that have a "...high potential for abuse...", "...no currently accepted medical use...", and "...a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug..."; other drugs in the category include Heroin, LSD, MDMA, peyote, mescaline and psilocybin, and many more. Weed truly is not in proper company there, but apparently it is not simply a matter of popping it off the list. (P.S. How do you get the html breaks to stay in your comments? I have tried adding them but they get stripped out when I preview. Thanks!)

Breaks in comments:

Put BR in angle brackets for one line down
Put BR in 2 sets of angle brackets for two lines down

Hello, Me: thank you so much for the tip. I was doing that but the "br" was in lowercase and they were getting removed -- now I see this is a case where case matters!

Thanks agin! :-)