Puff it, pass it and permit it. Catchy slogans are good. It's like click it or ticket except it doesn't make me angry. In fact, put to a test, it would be difficult to determine which of those laws is more useless. Smoke has been rising over the issue for a while, and to be perfectly blunt, Michael Phelps just got burned by Kellogg's blazing his endorsement stash, and it's high time for us to cash the issue with some kind of joint resolution. All right, I promise that's all the puns I'm going to use (see if you can find all eight).

To get to the point at hand, here we have another political action that everyone from both parties should be able to get behind. On the other hand, being fair to President Barack Obama, I seriously doubt there is any chance of this happening. I suppose it wouldn't create the best image for the first-ever black president to prioritize positive legislation on rolling blunts.

I don't care what you claim your opinion on drugs is, at the very least we should all concur that America should have consistency in its laws, right? Well, as much as I despise research, let's do a side-by-side comparison. Each year, there are over 85,000 alcohol related deaths. In 40 percent of violent crimes, 78 percent of assaults and 88 percent of criminal damage cases, the offender was under the influence of alcohol. Compare this to almost no reported cases of marijuana-induced crime and zero cases of death by marijuana overdose.

Don't just gloss over these stats. That means that the clear majority of the times there is criminal damage or an assault, it relates to drinking. Let's also examine how our war on drugs is going. So far, barely over one month into the year, our federal and state governments have already spent over six billion dollars for the “war on drugs.”

When we inspect our nation's history, homicide rates per citizen have been highest during Prohibition and the war on drugs, which began in 1969. Meanwhile, 47 percent, or close to half of all Americans, have admitted to smoking pot sometime during their life. What is happening here? Somebody tell me I'm not the only one looking at these facts in complete disbelief!

Where is this tremendous negative image of weed coming from? Wasn't Michael Phelps arrested a few years back for drunk driving? And now it's worse? I'll tell you where it comes from: mainly just because it's been illegal for so long.

I mean, look at what those anti-drug advertisements used to be: some out of control teen smokes a bowl, then steals his grandmother's car and runs over a handicapped infant while molesting his sister. The image has changed slightly to doped-up losers who giggle while eating candy and bagel bites. Yeah, that fits better into the category of illicit activity over the raging alcoholic who curses his wife and beats his children. So what could we expect to see if our country evened up its drug policy? More people smoking, yes, also a drop in alcohol use, the extinction of cigarettes, a drop in crime and billions of dollars back in taxpayers pockets.

Justin Poythress is a senior in Peabody College.  He can be reached at j.poythress@vanderbilt.edu.