Crack kills, pot giggles. (Off the Map).

You got to hand it to the Bush Administration: They refuse to quit. They're as indomitable as that dried milk scum at the dead center inside bottom of your kid's empty breakfast glass left out in the sun.

First they counter the U.N. weapons inspectors' inability to find the merest hint of a whisper of a scintilla of any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as positive proof they were right: "See, we told you he was hiding them."

Then, when queried as to why the Butcher of Baghdad failed to use any of this incredibly frightening arsenal to thwart our attack, the Administration snaps back: "He hid them so good, even he couldn't find them."

Now we're in charge, still can't find nothing, and the Administration explains their ghostly whereabouts this way: "The looters got to 'em first." Yeah, sure, I think we all buy that. Can just imagine blue-collar Baghdad Bob coming home from a busy day of street looting: "Hey, honey, remember those 200 CCs of pure industrial grade anthrax we were scrimping and saving, hoping one day to raise a stake big enough to buy? Well, our prayers have been answered!"

Of course, if Hans Blix and the boys ever wandered over to the U.S. of A. to seek weapons of individual destruction, they'd best be advised to wait till September 13th of next year, when it'll be like picking blueberries out of rock salt. That's the date our national assault weapons ban expires.

Not that the ban worked all that well. Gun manufacturers immediately figured out how to skirt it by making minor design modifications to their bullet hoses. You know, changing trigger guard positions, adding racing stripes, applying Pokemon decals. But the NRA still strenuously opposes the reinstitution of the ban. It's like disco, same beat ten years later. "Assault weapons can be used as legitimate hunting rifles," says the NRA.

You know what, I can buy that argument. I mean, you can also use a chainsaw to cut butter. Just going to get a little messy around muffin time is all I'm saying.

Straight off, I got to tell you, I don't smoke pot. Used to. Used to deal it. Bad Midwestern weed. Indiana gold. $95 a pound. We'd roll skinny little toothpick joints and smoke all day long. Right around 8:00 at night, we'd start to wonder, "Hey, am I actually getting high?" The answer, of course, was no, we had just spent the entire day hyperventilating. I quit smoking around 1978 when the heathen devil weed got too good. But you know what? I miss it. Not for the high. For all the wrong reasons. I miss rolling a joint one-handed while driving. I miss being illegal. I miss being a rebel. But it seems the U.S. government is determined to maintain that rebel status for its estimated eighty million pot smokers.

You wouldn't be accused of being one toke over the line if, after U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer refused to sentence Ed Rosenthal on federal charges of growing more than 100 plants, you assumed it was a victory for the pro-pot movement.

But if you think this action will cause the Bush Administration to slow down its feverish crackdown on medical marijuana, you might want to hold off on investing all your money in rolling paper manufacturers. Richard Meyer, spokesman for the San Francisco division of the DEA, said, "The so-called medical marijuana initiative was a smokescreen: The real agenda of these people was to legalize not only marijuana but all drugs."

Can you believe these guys? A third-grader can tell you that crack is to pot as an Uzi is to a banana. Crack kills, pot giggles. Say you do run into a crazed pothead, what's the worst thing that's going to happen? You might get fleas, that's about it. OK, there's Twinkie creme on your shirt, wipe it off.

It's not like you can walk out to your backyard and pull a cocktail off the Daiquiri bush. Although that stuff is legal. And heavily taxed. See, there's your answer right there. All we need is one state financially desperate enough to legalize it and throw a tax on it. Now I ask myself, who would be willing to piss off the Bush Administration that bad just to pull himself out of a money hole? Hmmm. Davis, can you hear me?

Will Durst can still roll a joint; he just won't smoke it.