Office of National Drug Control Policy director Gil Kerlikowske is having difficulty facing other more plausible explanations for why teenage marijuana use might have increased. It’s easier to blame medical marijuana instead.

Do the former DEA Administrators defend the federal marijuana prohibition with evidence that marijuana’s harms to users are so great that users must be denied the liberty to take the minimal risks attendant to its use? No, they cite an annual “strategy document” that has historically been an instrument of political propaganda, and was never taken seriously a genuine policy or planning document for addressing public safety or public health problems.

Proposition 19 is on the November 2, 2010 ballot in California. It would let adults who are 21 use marijuana and grow their own. Isn’t that reasonable? Isn’t it time to Just Say Now?

Mr. President, happy birthday. Aren’t you old enough to smoke marijuana? How old should the rest of us be to take responsibility for our marijuana use? If w are old enough to drink, aren’t we old enough to be given the responsibility to use marijuana?