I don't always keep up with the news, but I hear that lately the big story is about a big balloon filled with hot air. And I don't mean Rush Limbaugh.
No, the "balloon boy" story seems to have taken over the media for the past week or so, and you know the story has been well covered when even I have heard about it. Basically, a 6-year-old boy named Falcon got into a hot air balloon and decided to travel around the world in 80 days.
Actually, I'm lying. That was Jules Verne, who was at least 8 years old at the time. No, this 6-year-old boy did not travel around the world in 80 days. In fact, he didn't even fly away in the balloon at all. He was just hiding in the garage, in spite of what another large mass of hot air, his father, told the media.
His father, no stranger to media sensationalism, is an actor and would-be reality TV mogul who has been on "Wife Swap." He was also on "Kid Swap," where you can trade your kid's normal childhood and family's integrity for national celebrity.
So, enough media time for him. I won't even mention his name. Because I'd rather talk about another issue of even higher importance than air balloons.
After all, running hot air balloons is very expensive, and getting very high in a balloon is a rare occurrence. On the other hand, there is another vehicle that many people use to get very high.
I am, of course, talking about marijuana. The U.S. Justice Department recently told federal prosecutors not to pursue
No, I'm lying again. But the acceptance of medical marijuana is a fact, and more states may soon vote to allow similar measures, now that federal raids won't make such programs pointless. In the meantime, however, only 13 states allow medical marijuana -- which is an unlucky number. The entire West Coast is on the list, as are Alaska and Hawaii. Then again, in Hawaii, they also eat poi.
In New England, Vermont, Maine and even Rhode Island have medical marijuana laws on the books. Oddly enough, Massachusetts does not. To me, this seems almost an abdication of Massachusetts' role as a leading state in liberalism. Sure, we voted to decriminalize marijuana last year. But why not put it to work doing some good? Imagine if alcohol was decriminalized but still not allowed for use in sterilizing wounds.
You might argue that the case is completely different, because the kind of alcohol you use to sterilize wounds is generally cheaper and less pleasant-tasting than the kind of alcohol you drink. (If this is not the case, you should consider consulting a sommelier. ) But if alcohol truly becomes used for medicinal purposes, there's no reason this couldn't happen with marijuana as well.
Imagine a cheaply available medical marijuana that was produced specifically for medicinal purposes, that tasted awful and provided little of the pleasant effects of recreational marijuana. It would be the rubbing alcohol of marijuana. Nobody would enjoy it, and whenever a doctor prescribed it, people would complain bitterly just as they do when you pour rubbing alcohol on their wounds.
So that's what I'd like to see. I'm calling on our nation's scientists to get to work creating a cheap form of marijuana for medical use. Personally, I'd be delighted to see the look on some people's faces if you told them medical marijuana was now legal and doctor-prescribed but that all the fun has been taken out. I bet nobody would even want marijuana any more.
Well, I'm probably lying on that one, too.
Seth Brown is the author of "Rhode Island Curiosities," the creator of GodToVerse.com and full of hot air. His column appears weekly in the Transcript and weakly on his Web site, www.RisingPun.com
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