I used to work for ONDCP in IT since you brought them up. You’d be amazed at how even-handed they were under Clinton or the real cost of the issues. I’d post more about their stats, but most of what I know is 15 years old.

Ya can’t roll your eyes at fat suburban alcoholics and not roll your eyes at potheads.

But overall… I know many people who did hard drugs in the 1970s who died of heart failure at age 50 or 60. My friends who stayed doing drugs throughout their 30s have real issues of success and performance today, including non-drug related jail stretches, drug-related jail, probation, etc. Knew a guy at UMD who was hit on his bike by a car filled with marijuana smoke where the driver and passengers barely knew their car was off the road and all but the driver sat there rocking out to the music until the cops came. A musician friend who made mediocre music that while he was high he thought was the greatest, most innovative stuff ever. Was at a party where two guys, really high, stuck their hands through glass windows in a contest of kung fu skills. My best friend in high school went to Dartmouth for undergrad and grad but ended up renting a houseboat – “smoke on the water!” you can look at these stories as unrelated anecdotes, but I see them as a strong repeatable pattern of minor disasters that I’ve seen for 25 years.

More to the point Neener, even if marijuana does dull your brain cells (whatever that means), they are his brain cells. Not yours. If you really were concerned, you would have offered him advice/assistance instead of calling the police. The POLICE do not offer help when it comes to marijuana possession. They lock you up.

For every one of your friends supposedly negatively affected by marijuana, there is someone like me. When I can smoke marijuana, I smoke constantly. It has not held me back. I have an MBA in finance. I own several properties. I am at the top of my field as a software developer.

Now I was pulled over by Maryland State troopers around 2004 and my trunk was opened, car inspected because I my car had gotten clipped by a truck on 95 and I quickly pulled over to the side of the road. The trooper full-on Marine Corps Drill Sergeant yelled at me and threatened to lock me up for drugs because I was freaking out. He kept talking about DC this and DC that. Refused to believe my story that the damage to my rear view mirror was due to an accident that just happened.

I understand that I didn’t get the handcuffs, but I definitely got the threats, including putting my infant in police custody.

I was also pulled over in Fairfax and when the officers snuck up the junior guy responded, “We were looking for someone else” aka Driving While Black aka Driving with DC tags.

On the other hand, I call the police on drug dealers. Why? Because of incidents like what happened on Delafield this weekend. But I can really care less if you are drinking a beer or smoking a joint in public. That is pretty much where I draw the line. Now if you were shooting up heroin, that would be different. That is a public safety issue as needles get left around.

Let me give you an example of what happens to black men on a daily basis that causes extreme ANGER toward the police. A couple of years ago, I was driving to G’town on K. Right before the Whitehurst Fwy. A cop pulls me over for running a red light. No problem, I’ll pay the ticket. It was raining. He supposedly “smells” marijuana in my car and leaves me splayed out on the ground in handcuffs for what seemed like an eternity while he searched my car. He never found it as there was none. He kept threatening to call for K-9 dogs all the while I was pleading with him to let me go. I was headed to a party and ended up soaked while he is looking for marijuana in my car. This type of police action does not happen to white people in DC. I won’t go as far to say it is about race as the cop was black. But it is this game of cat and mouse where most of the criminals in DC look alike that prevents cops from distinguishing between the murderers and drug dealers and people like me. Just look at the description you gave for the young man in Trinidad. That is damn near 1 out of 3 black men in DC.

This is bad for business on so many levels. This is so bad for the community. The people we need in the community are being run away. People like me are too invested to leave. Same for the outlaws. Just a bad situation.