Please make a little room while I ascend my soapbox. My mental cup runneth over with bewildering ideation since the Supreme Court ruling which effectively overturned laws made by individual states concerning medical marijuana use. Individual states governing themselves is supposed to be the goal of this ruling party and the issue of state’s rights once sparked a nasty war. Maybe it’s time for the states to rise up and say they are not going to take it anymore.

To my mind, the Supreme Court’s ruling on the use of marijuana by the terminally ill and chronic pain sufferers is just plain inhumane. Nobody is hurt when sick and dying people smoke pot and it’s not likely those folks growing their own for medical use are going to be in downtown USA pushing dime bags, but they might be safer doing so, since the war on drugs is being won by the drug dealers. The government spends more than $7 billion annually to try and enforce the prohibition of marijuana. Think how useful that money would be for any number of social programs that have been severely reduced or eliminated in the last 15 years.

It’s not as if those wishing to use marijuana as medication do it in a vacuum either. Patients are medically supervised and many health agencies support the use of this natural substance. It has been known to reduce the nausea associated with chemotherapy, assist with pain management, and enhance the appetite to keep weak and sick people from becoming weaker still. I find it interesting that one of the dissenting judges, Chief Justice Rehnquist, a cancer patient, might be looking to fire up a doobie of his own in the near future.

All is not lost however. Congress can, in its infinite wisdom, allow for medicinal marijuana use. Talk about redundancy. Eleven states had already said it was OK, then the Supremes decided the federal government has the final authority over state law, begging the question of why we even need to bother having state legislatures and governors if states have no sovereignty over their own borders.
Thinking about it all makes me dizzy and I’m not even on drugs.

***
Folks, it’s going to one hellishly long hurricane season if Tropical Storm Arlene is any indication. I realize that last year four nasty whirlygirls came a calling on Florida’s shores, but if every tropical storm is going to be handled with news overkill, it will be like the boy who shouted wolf. Destin emptied out like a stink bomb had been set off Friday afternoon as tourists headed elsewhere with their money. Sure, tropical storms pack some rain and wind, but we live on the coast and have tropical storms all the time.

This one was a non-event. Those of us that live here all have extra water in the closet, extra batteries and candles at all times. We can lose power in a heartbeat. Our freezers are mostly bare during the hurricane season…why temp fate? And why try to make people so edgy?

We’ve had more and harder rain and gustier winds during an average thunderstorm. The only ones with any real concerns were those living in flood prone areas and those in mobile homes. But these folks need always be concerned when a storm of any magnitude is in the region. I resented watching David Letterman in a little box at the top of my TV screen because the television stations had continual coverage of Arlene as she inched her way toward Alabama. It was never classified as a hurricane and if not for last year would have just been a storm headed our way, not an adrenaline pumping excuse to send all available news reporters to the shore. Everybody needs to get a grip.

Hand me my cane please, I need to get down now. .

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