Do I want to be elated? You betcha. But then I had a total downer moment this morning, courtesy of the Washington Post's Charles Lane. In a post titled "'Medical Marijuana' Is a Trojan Horse," Lane argues that weed has very few medicinal properties and that we're all just using it for recreation, and that that's wrong because it's not honest.

Then he compares the medical case for marijuana to the scientific case for creationism.

For a guy who once edited The New Republic and teaches a class on journalism (yeah, going ad hominem here), Lane has an awfully inconsistent argument.

For starters, he first calls the findings of an American Cancer Society's literature survey "mixed," when they're not...actually...mixed. So, Mr. Lane, let me help you. The proven findings will be highlighted in black. The "possible" findings will be highlighted in red.

First, it found that scientific data indicate that cannabinoids, particularly THC, have some potential to relieve pain, control nausea and vomiting, and stimulate appetite. Cannabinoids probably affect control of movement and memory, but their effects on the immune system are unclear. It found that some of the effects of cannabinoids, such as reduced anxiety, sedation, and euphoria, may be helpful for certain patients and situations and undesirable for others. Based on the many studies reviewed, researchers also found that smoking marijuana delivers harmful substances and may be an important risk factor in the development of lung diseases and certain types of cancer.

Get that, Mr. Lane? There's plenty of evidence of marijuana's medicinal properties, much less for its harms. But what do you say next?

• "This is especially pernicious when it involves selling phony remedies for real diseases (or real drugs for phony diseases)."
• "I don’t know what you call it when a doctor “recommends” smoking a dried plant (perhaps under a brand name like “Afghan Gold Seal”) at a lounge where the dosage and purity of the active ingredient cannot be systematically controlled. It sure doesn’t sound like medicine to me."
• "laws like California’s, which, in practice, permit people to get pot for practically any purported malady under the sun, show that the medical rationale is a cover for recreational use"
• "Or does pot have “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States” as federal law provides -- and, I would add, the evidence suggests?"

Wait! What does the evidence suggest again?

...have some potential to relieve pain, control nausea and vomiting, and stimulate appetite...some of the effects of cannabinoids, such as reduced anxiety, sedation, and euphoria, may be helpful for certain patients...

So, Chuck Lane, how does it feel to be a highly paid, well respected hack? You do realize, don't you, that Mexico is falling apart over this drug? That the United States locks up mothers and fathers and sons and daughters in cages--FUCKING CAGES, CHUCK--for possession of marijuana? You do realize, too, Chuck, that medical marijuana is cheaper and easier on the body--because there's more than one way to get your nug buzz on--than the immorally over-priced anti-nausea pills that cancer and AIDS patients have to empty out their fucking pockets to afford?

Take it back, Chuck Lane. Or better yet, just shut the fuck up until you have something worthwhile to contribute to the conversation.

For those of you who are too cool to quit, join me in asking Michael Kinsley to extend to us his blessing of President-Elect Barack Obama's addiction.

Kinsley's opening graf is great:

It is still okay to discriminate against one group of Americans. This discrimination is not only legal, it is encouraged. You see members of this oppressed minority huddled outside in rain and snow, forbidden to seek refuge. No one feels sorry for them. And yet we may have just elected one of these pariahs as president.

As is his reasoning for leaving Obama be:

Obama's steely calm is now one of our country's major assets. If he needs an occasional cigarette to preserve it, let's hand him an ashtray, offer him a light and look the other way.

Everything in between those two points, which come at the beginning and end of Kinsley's essay, is tsk-tsk white noise. (If I may be so bold, Why do talking heads refrain from haranguing overeaters with the same ferociousness that they attack smokers? I know the answer, but it's worth pointing out--at every available opportunity--that public health nuts are inconsistent with their bullying.)

I did a quick poll of two of Washington City Paper's former smokers, and neither believes that smoking is the only means of preserving Obama's "steely calm" (though one of them suggested that it would be a rough week in the country if Obama decided to quit cold turkey). The argument is bunk for another reason: "whether to meddle" shouldn't be decided on a sliding scale of importance. If the president is important enough to be left alone, we all are. And if he's not, we're all fucking doomed.

In honor of the day, I've unearthed a delightful rebuttal to the "those things will kill you" crowd, and it comes courtesy of the poet Graham Lee Hemminger:

Tobacco is a dirty weed.  I like it.
It satisfies no normal need.  I like it.
It makes you thin, it makes you lean,
It takes the hair right off your bean
It's the worst darn stuff I've ever seen.
I like it.

I like it, so I do it.

Good luck to all you quitters. Today, I'll smoke your 'baccy for ya.