I realize that when a Senate report advocates the legalization of pot, it’s supposed to be a big step forward. And advocates for the decriminalization of marijuana do have a long list of worthy arguments.

You’ll hear about the wasted millions in enforcement, and how pot’s not physically addictive, and how alcohol is way worse, and how convicted users are unfairly punished. Great stuff. I couldn’t agree more. Except for one problem: pot sucks.

I want to encourage the REDUCTION of the number of potheads that litter our social landscape. And before you accuse me of Nazi-Darwinism, let me state that I have plenty of “cred” in this debate. You see, I was a pothead in high school, and a colossally dumb one at that. Yes, I have a personal bias, and it might not hold up in the court of public opinion, but it’s a worthy point.

I didn’t find the drug physically addictive, but it may as well have been. Instead of humping girls or reading books, my interests were reduced to getting high and watching Star Wars.

I remember wasting my time in cafés with friends, only talking about pot/drug-related stories—you know, the ones that start off “This one time we got SO high…” or “It must have been B.C. weed, ’cause….”

Things reached a climax when, on one of many half-baked nights in my room, I lit my hair on fire trying to smoke from a pipe. Lame.

Once I quit smoking up I realized how little I had progressed. Apparently, if all you talk and think about is drugs, not much else gets in. Of course, I realize that not everyone who smokes up becomes a chronic user. And yes, if anything, alcohol should be the drug criminalized for wrecking a gazillion lives.

I also agree that people should be able to choose without “the man” getting in the way. But something about pot advocacy bugs me. Maybe I was tipped off by seeing a photo of a Marijuana Party booster in front of a pot-leafed Canadian flag. I couldn’t get over how lame it is to base a whole political party around a drug.

How can such a narrow fixation, like the one my friends and me shared in cafés, not be the work of total chronics? It goes beyond just liking something. I mean, would you start the McCain Pizza Pops Party? How about the Acid Wash Jeans United Alternative? Not unless you’re insane.

Add those people who wear those idiotic green, pot-leafed Dr Seuss hats, and it just gets unbearable.

So will pot be legalized? Well, I doubt the federal government will legislate all of the Senate committee’s recommendations. They’re too controversial.

I figure the Liberals will find some typically Liberal middle-of-the-road solution somewhere just short of out-and-out legalization.

Whatever. Call me a big snob. Either way, I liked the mild discouragement that criminalization provided and would like to keep it that way.

I loathe the thought of increasing the chances that I’ll enter a bar and meet anyone like me when I was 17, totally baked and proud of it. Although when I say “proud of it,” the high version of me wouldn’t be able to actually say this because I was usually a speechless, quivering giggleman when I was stoned.

Maybe it’s not worth fighting against, but I still wonder why marijuana has become a drug worth fighting for.