A report is getting some play in the press that marijuana is getting more potent and more kids are having problems with it.

First of all, I don’t think kids should drink and do drugs. I did it, you did it, but no one in their right mind recommends it, just like we don’t recommend a lot of other stupid shit we all did. Parents need to exert their influence and make sure their children make good choices.

But what strikes me funny is how people treat marijuana so much differently than alcohol. You can drink beverages with low alcohol content, such as beer and wine, or you can drink beverages with high alcohol content, such as hard liquor. No journalist in their right minds would write an article about hard liquor having more alcohol than beer. It’s obvious, known by all and not newsworthy in the slightest.

So what if pot is stronger now? It may very well mean that people smoke less of it, consume less tar as a result and it may thus have an overall health benefit. Instead of smoking a joint or doing bong hits they use a one-hitter. (Not that I know anything about this stuff.)

Reports like this are good information, but my fear is it will lead people to think that prohibition is a good thing, and it’s not. No one, ever, anywhere is talking about the prohibition of alcohol again. Why? Because it was ineffective and was the genesis of organized crime in America. It put huge dollars into the black market and it did not stop people from drinking.

The same is true of marijuana. The only rational, life-saving, crime-preventing, money-saving strategy is to legalize, or at the very least decriminalize marijuana.