Bring Me Some Reefers!

"...the new drug menace which is destroying the youth of America in alarmingly increasing numbers. Marihuana is that drug - a violent narcotic - an unspeakable scourge - The Real Public Enemy Number One!"

Kinman Chan of San Francisco received an embarrassing beatdown at the hands of a female flight attendant after his erratic behavior caused the flight to be diverted. His excuse? He took a double dose of his medication - marijuana cookies.

This story is so utterly absurd, I almost suspect it's some kind of half-assed negative PR stunt by an anti-legalization activist. I saw it first on The Other McCain, where Smitty is being a good bit more generous in his assumptions than I am:

"Now, if it’s legal, fine. If the dope is prescription, fine. A note from your doctor, however, is not an excuse for crappy behavior. If taking the medication precludes air travel, so be it. You can’t always get what you want, and the need to have a safe, low-stress flight trumps any dude’s need to be baked at altitude."

I'm not willing to give this guy the benefit of the doubt and suggest he just avoid air travel.

Nope. I'm calling "Bullshit!" This guy's a faker.

Check out Lorin Gorman's description of Chan's behavior before she snatched him up:

But soon enough, the passenger became aggressive, Gorman says. "He's banging around, screaming in the back bathroom, he's opened all the compartments," the attendant remembers.

According to a criminal complaint, Chan walked out of the bathroom with his pants down."

I said, ‘You need to sit down now’,” Gorman said. He did not. "He went like that with his elbow," Gorman said, bracing her wrist as she threw an elbow at shoulder height. "Well, what I did, I just put him in an arm lock. To get his other arm, I had to jump up on the seat … He was resisting. He was stiff. At that point, I just put him into a choke hold."

That sound much like any stoner you know?

Be honest. Regardless of your personal opinions about - or experience with - marijuana, everyone knows at least one stoner. Does this sound like something they might do?

The answer is no. What it sounds like is the overacting of someone whose knowledge of pot begins and ends with government anti-drug propaganda and the movie "Reefer Madness".

This guy isn't as creepy as Rahm, either...

I've stated before - I support decriminalization. (There's that inner Libertarian again.) I think the drug war is a shameful waste of tax money and law enforcement manpower. I support a common-sense decriminalization, not a free-for-all dope fest. We have reasonable laws for the use of alcohol by adults, and I can't see any logical reason not to apply the exact same rules to pot.

Those laws would already cover this dolt. He'd still be sitting in a cell, charged with public intox on top of everything else, same as if he'd polished off six or seven mini whiskeys before going wild.

But wait... and watch... and mark my words. It won't take 24 hours for some neo-Prohibitionist to start yammering that this is an example of why it should never be legal, and that we should work to curtail the medical use of marijuana.

Whatever else happens to this dumbass, he should lose his prescription. There's evidence that medical marijuana can be beneficial to those suffering from a great range of problems...

But even medical marijuana can't cure stupid.