Personal View: This administration can't even grow good pot

God is in the details, children. Let's check up on a really modest activity undertaken by our government -- an activity that doesn't take that much due diligence to do well. Let's check up on something that thousands of Americans do in their backyards and window boxes. Let's check up on growing pot. Yes, the government grows marijuana for research purposes. But guess what -- it wouldn't get a fly stoned. Read this:

Lyle Craker, a professor of plant and soil sciences at the University of Massachusetts, asked an administrative judge to overrule the federal Food and Drug Administration so he could grow marijuana for F.D.A.-approved research projects by other scientists. Researchers who want marijuana have only one legal source: a crop grown in Mississippi and dispensed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Scientists say they need an alternative partly because the government's marijuana is of such poor quality - too many seeds and stems ... Scientists can't do good studies until they get good marijuana.

Phillip Alden, a writer living in Redwood City, Calif. told me marijuana eased excruciating pains in his fingertips, controlled nausea and enabled him to avoid the wasting syndrome that afflicts AIDS patients who are unable to eat enough food. But Mr. Alden said only some kinds of marijuana worked - not the weak variety provided by the federal government, which he smoked during a research study. "It was awful stuff. They started out with a very low-grade plant, rolled it up with stems and seeds, and then freeze-dried it so that they probably ruined any of the THC crystals. All it did was give me headaches and bronchitis. The bronchitis got so bad I had to drop out of the study." --NY Times article.

Now listen. I'm can be as useless as a toad without a tongue, but give me the money, and I'll grow you some bitchin' pot. What does it take? Some good seeds, easily obtainable anywhere in northern California, some OK soil, some good sun, and some water. Not too difficult.

But this here Administration can't even do that right. The home-grown of a Mississippi teenager beats what an entire Administration, with the full resources of the federal government, can't get together. Where's their pride in a good honest day's work -- in growing an excellent crop of fine weed? Is it too much to ask?

The logic is inescapable. If they can't grow good pot, how can you expect them to fight a good war?