I was watching somebody smoke cannabis up at Mine Kill State Park the other day. Pungent but so is tobacco. Once a criminal offense to openly display or publicly smoke cannabis – long after mere possession had been decriminalized – nowadays it’s regulated the same as ordinary tobacco – banned inside most office buildings and restaurants but allowed outdoors most places except at schools, hospitals and near the entrance of office buildings. Plus no smoking inside of motor vehicles for obvious reasons.

The thing is it really shows how arbitrary the old law really was. It does make you sleepy, time go by quickly with your eyes wide open, relaxed and somewhat giddy and forgetful. It takes the edge off of life. But hardly as powerful as alcohol. We were putting people in jail for something you can now go to a dispensary and hand over $10 for a week of relaxed evenings in the woods. Or grow in your front yard if you so please. Something that is essentially a more pungent tobacco.

In some ways it reminds me of gay marriage. Once taboo – you know homosexuality – now somewhat common and ordinary and certainly not centered on sexual deviance or colorful dress. Something a decade later accepted as normal, just how everybody does it. Government can be so cruel.