$4 million in marijuana found on Santa Barbara beach

[Hekate]

26. Wow. Just wow. I do not smoke pot. I did not smoke it when young, either. I voted to legalize it.

I was in my 50s when a friend pressed me to try some of her stash, and all it did was make my asthma kick up and give me a hangover. So thanks, but no thanks. (Regional forest fires make my asthma kick up, too, just in case you think this was a one-off reaction.)

The Panga boat smugglers are criminals on many levels, just as the Mafia was during the liquor Prohibition era. The Mexican cartels are dangerous, just as the Mafia was. You think the Mafia was your friend, just because they supplied the booze? Think again.

Outlawing a drug with popularity as wide as alcohol was a big, big mistake. Fortunately Prohibition was repealed. Unfortunately, marijuana was misclassified as a drug far more dangerous than alcohol with no utilitarian purpose. That was as big a mistake as Prohibition, and worse, because it has gone on longer, has lumped smokers in with meth users and heroin addicts, and has given felony records to millions of young men and women.

A person does not have to be a pot smoker to recognize that the law itself is criminal. A person does not have to be a narc to recognize that the Mexican cartels are also criminal, and dangerous. I can hold more than one thought in my head at one time.

Okay?