[420 Girl]

Most Americans seem content to let Olympic star Michael Phelps, President Barack Obama and other high-profile folks off the hook for smoking the whacky weed, whether it was last week or three decades ago.

Even that sheriff from South Carolina who wants to bust Phelps isn't getting any support from other law enforcement officials in his state. The standard response when publicly confronted with evidence of pot smoking is "Sorry, I was/am young," accompanied by a sheepish grin and an acknowledgment that millions of Americans can relate.

But while apologies for "youthful indiscretions" are piling up among the "elite" of our society, the rank and file are putting in actual jail time for the same behavior.

Drug Policy News reported that police made almost 830,000 arrests for marijuana law offenses in the United States in 2007, of which 89 percent were for possession for personal use.

"Those arrested were separated from their families, branded criminals, and in many cases fired from their jobs and denied school loans and other public assistance," according to the 2008 report. "The arrests cost taxpayers billions of dollars and consumed an estimated 4.5 million law enforcement hours ( that's the equivalent of taking 112,500 law enforcement officers off the streets )."

It's time for some honesty about the country's failed war on drugs. And it's time to take marijuana off the battlefields.

Filling our jails with marijuana users while rival drug gangs continue to kill and maim those who get in their way, on our streets and at the Mexican-American border, is too high a price to pay for what most of America is happy to forgive and forget.

Al Capone ring a bell?

The state's prison population tripled between 1980 and 2001, from 7,731 in 1980 to 23,752. Of those, 24 percent of the inmates were drug offenders. Some estimates are much higher.

Now, Gov. O'Malley wants to spend $23 million on two new minimum-security prisons built for nonviolent drug offenders who have more need of treatment than incarceration. The effect is still punitive, and the intent reveals a blatant hypocrisy.

Maryland lawmakers grudgingly accepted that marijuana has a medical benefit, but still allow medical marijuana users to be harassed, arrested and charged. What a tragic contradiction. We can blame it on determined drug warriors who want to paint this issue as good versus evil, instead of seeking a common-sense approach.

Last week an editorial by this paper encouraged people to rat out their neighbors for suspected drug activity. In the context of bad laws, why? So we can continue to cram pot smokers into our overcrowded jails to the tune of $35,000 annually per inmate?

On the national level, President Obama gave hope to those in favor of reforming marijuana laws before he was elected, but chances are he will not expend political capital on the issue anytime soon. Despite the fact that the percentage of Americans favoring the legalization of pot has risen more than 33 percent since 1995, and now stands at its all-time highest level of public support, according to a 2005 Gallup poll.

Obama's own transition website, Change.gov, featured top questions for the new administration. Questions related to amending drug laws, specifically marijuana, were at the top of the list, yet politicos seem uninterested in tackling the subject.

How long can these questions be ignored by lawmakers at all levels of government? The time for reform is long overdue.

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