But, while wandering around Pennsylvania Avenue after the inauguration opening ceremony today I caught a whiff of that familiar smell from the dormitory I lived in about 12 years ago.

That's correct. Pot, weed, schwag, the stickiest of the icky. Whatever you want to call it, someone was smoking it somewhere nearby.

I thought Obama supporters yelled, �Fire it up,� just to get people excited.

Now I'm not the kind of guy who's going to call a cop over something like that, and I'll fully disclose my only proof of the puffing comes from my own nose. I don't have any police reports nor did I physically see anyone actually smoking on the street no matter how many times I sheepishly looked around.

That smell is distinctive, though. We've all caught it at concerts, or maybe outside of the theater before Pineapple Express. Or, walk down the right street in Riverside and you'll smell it coming out of one window or another.

But I wondered, who in the world tokes up for an inauguration?

Maybe it's just me. I've never heard anyone start a story like, "Man, that whole swearing in was a blur."

Regardless of the inspiration the smell still seemed out of place. Or did it?

Marijuana legalization is one of those issues that seems to have fallen off the radar, even before the nose-diving economy dominated the presidential campaign trail.

Silent protest for a revival on Inauguration Day? Probably not that epic.

Still, whatever happened to the War on Drugs? Did it go silent after all those years and all those tax dollars?

Perhaps those few pot smokers bold enough to light up within view of the White House, are making a point.

Source: Florida Times-Union (FL)
Author: David Hunt
Published: January 18, 2009
Copyright: 2009 The Florida Times-Union
Website: http://www.jacksonville.com/
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