How can Congress cure political ills? Smoke some marijuana.

By Dana Milbank, Tuesday, 
 

Legal marijuana is spreading like a weed across the land but it has yet to take root in the place where people might benefit most from inhaling: the U.S. Capitol.

The Maryland General Assembly finished work Monday on a marijuana decriminalization bill, joining two dozen other states and the District in some form of legalization. Colorado and Washington allow recreational pot, while most others have legalized only medical marijuana, but the combined campaign has redefined the meaning of a grass-roots movement.

Still, federal law hasn’t budged, and a bill sponsored by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) that would recognize the medical value of marijuana has languished for a year; it has only 23 co-sponsors and no chance of passing. On Monday, when members of the pro-legalization Americans for Safe Access held their annual “lobby day” on Capitol Hill, not a single member of Congress granted them a personal audience.
Of course, the cannabis corps wasn’t agitated about that. It isn’t agitated about much of anything. This might have something to do with the fact that many of its members use marijuana.

The lobby day briefing, scheduled for 11 a.m., was pushed back to noon, at which point the host asked for a further five-minute delay. There were no complaints, perhaps because munchies had been provided — potato chips and sandwiches, as well as Coca-Cola — and the crinkling of wrappers and crunching of chips could be heard throughout the event. If the pot proponents were any more laid back, they would have been horizontal.
In this sense, our perpetually warring lawmakers would have benefited from meeting with the legalization crowd, and perhaps trying some free samples.

Our ever-indignant representatives need urgently to chill out and free their minds. If the benefits the medical marijuana advocates touted on Monday are real, Congress should immediately reefer the matter to committee to draft a joint resolution: Everybody must get stoned.
Jahan Marcu, a PhD who gave the pharmacological portion of Monday’s briefing, explained to me the mechanism by which medical marijuana, if consumed by a sufficient number of lawmakers, could cure our political ills.

“Cannabis acts upon a system in our body, and that system — the endocannabinoid system — regulates five things,” said Marcu, who has long sideburns and wore an open-collar purple shirt. “It helps us to eat, sleep, relax, forget and protect.”
Our leaders don’t have much trouble eating, and whether they sleep well and are protected from cancer and other illnesses is not our concern. But getting them to relax and to forget? This could be most therapeutic.

Marcu said new research indicates that people who use marijuana perform better intellectually than those who drink alcohol or smoke tobacco. This suggests that if House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) were to switch vices from cigarettes and wine to pot, the body politic might be healthier.
Tests show that marijuana makes animals less sensitive to provocations such as a bell ringing. “If you ring it, they get freaked out,” Marcu said. “If you give them a cannabinoid, they tend not to get freaked out.”

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