In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

Many readers will recognize these lines from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem, "Kubla Khan".  Coleridge (1772-1834) was a gifted poet who suffered all his life with various and sundry physical and psychological maladies.  He was treated with laudanum, which is said to have fostered a lifetime opium addiction.  If we are to believe Joshua Lehrer, whose new book Imagine: How Creativity Works, is getting rave reviews, Coleridge's drug addiction may well have been a key factor in boosting his creative powers.

Similarly, fans of Sherlock Holmes are well aware that Arthur Conan Doyle saw fit to make his hero a cocaine addict.  Question: What made the super sleuth of Doyle's imagination so good at catching the dastardly doers of evil deeds, those consummate creeps, miscreants, and culprits behind every crime?  Answer:  His amazing powers of observation.

As a licensed physician whose father was an alcoholic, Doyle well understood the debilitating effects of hallucinogenic drugs.  Did Doyle perhaps know something we don't?  Did he recognize a link between drugs and creativity?  A link all but the most open-minded pundits, preachers, and politicians are loath to admit as a possibility?      

This question has a special relevance to Colorado, where I live half the year.  Colorado is friendly to the idea of medical marijuana and, truth to tell, many of our residents are, ahem, not opposed to the practice of smoking or otherwise ingesting the stuff.  Strictly for health reasons, of course.

So, what's the big deal?  What if  "Rocky Mountain High" is Colorado's theme song, if we all sit around a "campfire and everybody's high"?   If there are hundreds of marijuana dispensaries in Colorado (it's true) and more licensed pot shops in Denver than Starbucks (also true)? 

Well, here's the problem.  The federal government is cracking down on small-scale cannabis growers and dealers.  Not everywhere, mind you, but   selectively, in six federal districts, four of which are in (surprise!) California.  The other two are  Montana and Colorado.

Okay, okay.  Montana is a pretty crazy place.  Have you been there lately?  Yes?  Then you know what I'm talking about.  No?  That's probably for the best…

But Colorado!  Come on, Obama, you can't be serious.       

Actually, it's possible that the White House isn't serious – I mean about cracking down on medicinal (wink, wink) marijuana use.  Obama is definitely serious about other things, like terrorism and the economy.  And getting re-elected.  Let's see…where was I?   Maybe, I'm a little too relaxed.

Oh yes, now I remember:  about cannabis, right?  Medical marijuana use is legal in 15 states and the District of Columbia (insuring that you can't get higher than Congress or the Supreme Court in this country).  In 2009, shortly after Obama moved into the White House, the Justice Department (in the so-called Ogden memo) signaled that it would leave small-scale marijuana law enforcement to the states.  Apparently, there are officials within the Justice Department's vast bureaucracy – armed federal agents and prosecutors – who haven't gotten the message.               

Let us burn one from end to end,

And pass it over to me my friend.

Burn it long, we'll burn it slow,

To light me up before I go.

If you don't like my fire

Then don't come around

Cause I'm gonna burn one down.

 (Lyrics to a popular Ben Harper song.)

Last year, the Obama administration issued the Cole memo which appeared to give a green light for federal agents to go after the low-end marijuana trade, even where state law, as in Colorado,  has legalized it.  So where does that leave us?   In what state?   Colorado or Confusion? 

Medical marijuana states don't like it; Democratic and Republican legislators from five of these  have written a memo urging Obama to leave the matter to the states.  Colorado is among the states that have asked the federal government to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I drug (heroin, cocaine, "crack") to a Schedule II drug like, say, morphine so that physicians can safely prescribe it as they see fit. 

As I wrote these words last week, pot smokers everywhere were  looking forward to April 20, which marked the celebration known in the nimbus as National Pot Smokers Day, when people from all walks of life unite in a common cause to "burn one from end to end".

Of course, we weren't all be active participants.  We don't all smoke pot.  Some of us prefer wine or beer or something even stronger, which brings up not one question, but four:

1) How long are we going to go on pretending that arresting people for smoking pot serve any useful or desirable public policy purpose? 

2) How long are we going to make the same mistake our ancestors made back in the dark days of Prohibition?

3) Do we really believe that it's okay to drink alcohol but not to smoke dope?

4) Where is the medical evidence that pot is more inimical to good health than alcohol?

It's high time we recognize our own role in creating a mass market for illegal drugs in this country.  Legalizing and controlling the production and distribution of marijuana would be a step in the right direction.  Think about how organized crime flourished during Prohibition, how bootlegging became a fabulously profitable – and frequently violent – growth industry.

And one more thing.  Whatever happened to the idea of state's rights?  We don't want or need the federal government to solve all our problems.  And we certainly don't want or need Washington to make them worse.  If they think we do, they must be stoned.