Reefer Madness, Etcetera

On “Cheers,” Woody Harrelson played a bartender so stupid he probably thought bail was something you did with a bucket.

So when Woody Harrelson-the-real-person offered to post $500,000 in bail for marijuana activist Todd McCormick, it sort of figured that prosecutors wanted to call Harrelson at his movie set in Australia and make sure he was clear on the concept.

In the same way, it somehow figures that McCormick would grow his 4,000 plants, not in a desert hide-out, but in a stucco castle right smack in the middle of Bel-Air. I mean, if my map-of-the-stars is correct, one of his neighbors is Barry Manilow.

And was anyone surprised that McCormick appeared to have an entourage living in the castle--just like Eddie Murphy!--to take care of watering and stuff?

The whole affair has that ludicrous quality infusing so much of public life in Los Angeles.

One day Gloria Allred trots out an aggrieved single mom who claims she was knocked up by some guy in India who ran for prime minister. Or was it Pakistan? Anyway, Gloria says she’s gonna sue, and we eat it up.

A couple of days later Allred trots out a jilted model who blubbers for the cameras while Allred announces a lawsuit against the jilter, one Dodi al Fayed, now rumored to be putting the smooches on Princess Di.

And I’m not even gonna mention the snake that ate the Chihuahua.

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The quality of public life in L.A. is hardly a new story, of course. But the relentless junking-up of events tends to hide, on occasion, the parts of a story that actually mean something. It’s as if Los Angeles sees everything that happens here as cultural garbage, good only for a laugh.

Who would guess, for example, that the prosecution of marijuana guru McCormick may represent a willful decision by the state and the feds to pass up a chance to clarify one of the most important--and ambiguous--drug laws in recent U.S. history.

That appears to be the case, though you’d never know from all the Woody bulletins. The law, of course, is California’s big, bad marijuana initiative.

Why would the authorities do this? A good question, and we’ll get to that.

The McCormick case looms large because of its flagrant nature. The kid raised so many plants the place looked like an Armstrong’s, with some pots in full view of passersby. McCormick claims that the entire stash was for his own use or research, not for sale, and apparently the police have found no evidence to suggest otherwise.

Couple this with McCormick’s gold-plated credentials--a cancer victim, a serious student of marijuana genetics, a user operating under advice of his doctors--and you get to the central questions of the case:

* How far can a qualified user go in cultivating marijuana under our new state laws? Is 4,000 plants too much? How ‘bout 1,000?

* Can plants be raised for research?

Etcetera. Keep in mind that the marijuana initiative sets no limits on cultivation and addresses no side issues such as research.

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But as it stands, the McCormick case will never answer these questions. That’s because the Sheriff’s Department and the U.S. Justice Department decided to pull a gotcha on McCormick. They prosecuted him under federal law rather than state law, and there the case rests.

The gotcha has great advantages for elected officials like Sheriff Block and D.A. Garcetti. They avoid the possibility of losing the case and looking like fools. They may also see advantages in not resolving the questions hanging over the marijuana initiative. It means they can keep prosecuting cases selectively and keep their bona fides as drug warriors.

But for the rest of us, the cost is significant. Legitimate medicinal users all over the state will continue to operate under the threat of arrest and prosecution. No one will know precisely what is allowed and what is not.

And ambiguity in criminal matters always serves as an invitation to the scumbags of the world. One way or another, they will find advantage in our state of uncertainty.

There is a way to rescue the case. The feds could decline to indict McCormick--thus far he’s only been served with a criminal complaint--and, thereby, revert the case to the state.

Most likely they won’t, though. There’s been little awareness of the role the case could play, and thus little pressure to reverse the gotcha.

But who can blame us? We’ve been busy. There’s been Gloria and the hungry snakes and, hey, I’ve been told that tomorrow this sheik is gonna run down Hollywood Boulevard and . . .