Over at The American Spectator, R Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. takes to the interwebz to lecture us all on the evils of marijuana. The gist of his “argument” is that marijuana is not “civilized” like a good scotch and soda. He then tosses in quotes from former drug czar William Bennett, as if citing a man who has a vested interest in continuing the idiocy of prohibition is “proof.” And in case you weren’t convinced by the Drug Enforcement Acency’s pet researchers find evidence that marijuana is the worst thing since dinosaur-killing asteroid strikes, he tosses in the currently-relevant Ferguson, Missouri swipe: marijuana is dangerous because Michael Brown was most likely, probably, definitely, I think on the Mary Jane.

Tyrrell’s distillery-admiring piece is not about marijuana. It’s about the distain the self-anointed elites have toward the American population in general. This booze-addled prat tells us that people drink scotch (and presumably eat foie gras and caviar) because the appreciate the taste. I like scotch. It takes like gasoline. You can see him picturing his last evening in his smoking jacket by the fire in his billiard hall talking important politics with a collection of self important  jackasses. But marijuana! We are assured that people don’t appreciate the subtleties of the different varieties of cannabis; they just want to get high. It’s like drinking a 32 pack of Icehouse.

He would have been just as home schooling us on why tucking your shirt in is much more civilized than going untucked (without a doubt), or why a Chevy Silverado is passe when you could be driving a Porsche Cayenne, or why scotch is so much better than proletarian beer. Marijuana is popular — and I don’t mean people like it…it’s for the populares. Normal folks. The kind that can’t appreciate the smoky, peaty flavor and aroma of the ocean in a few fingers of Lagavulin. (And it you are drinking a single-malt Islay with soda, Mr. Tyrrell, you are a cretin!)

Is marijuana more dangerous than alcohol? No. Is it stupid to imbibe drugs? Probably. But so is drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, jumping out of an airplane, flying in an airplane, driving a car, riding a motorcycle, shooting guns, throwing knives, seducing an Eastern European female wrestler, rappelling, peeing on a live electrical wire, mixing up a batch of thermite and slagging a dumpster “just to see what’ll happen”, drinking coffee, eating candy, or swimming with sharks…and I’ve done all but two of those. (I don’t like tobacco…)

Life is inherently dangerous, and meddlesome moralists like Tyrrell make it tiresome, as well. And with the collection of fun-killing busybodies loose on the planet, right now, banning soda, salt, guns; throwing people in jail for letting their kids play on the leash (like we did in the supposedly serial killer and child molester-filled 1970s); or mandating gigantic, safety feature filled  cars, warning labels on everything from food, farts, and the sun…no wonder we all want to get high.