All Weed Weed Up!

Via Instapundit and Boing Boing, the L.A. Times posted an article showing all the quasi-legal marijuana joints in L.A. with a handy interactive map.

I first noticed one of these a month or two ago. I was driving and talking on a cell phone (it's L.A., it's the law) and I said, "Hey! I think that's a medical marijuana shop!" I drove through the lot and saw the store was closed and looked abandoned. I thought maybe these places were supposed to look like dives.

But the map reveals this was a place that had its license denied or revoked. Looking at the map, the highest concentration of stores seems to coincide with the poorest areas with the highest crime.

I guess crime and poverty lead to glaucoma.

I am, of course, opposed to drug use, whether recreational, phoney-baloney medical—and in most cases, legitimate medical uses. (Drugs should be used short-term to keep someone alive; corrective measures should be applied as soon as possible to obviate the need for long-term drug use.)

But the sheer insanity of the current situation is almost comical. We have hundreds of legal stores—but some guy got arrested by the Feds because he grew it in his backyard?

It is funny, although in a blackly-comic sort of way: We "fight" drugs, which drives up the prices and makes criminals out of users, fills the prisons, creates powerful gangs and international drug cartels that contribute to the deterioration of our neighboring countries—all without affecting the actual amount of drug use.

Meanwhile, doctors prescribe psychotropic drugs of dubious value like candy, and people drink like fish while scarfing stimulants to get through their days.

Somehow that doesn't add up to me.