At least once a semester, somebody writes an article in favor of legalizing marijuana. Well, seeing as nobody’s stepped up to the plate in the past three days, here it goes.

Marijuana should be legalized. Normally when this statement is made, some supporting arguments are trotted out, such as taxing legal marijuana sales would generate money for the government, or prisons wouldn’t be so ludicrously overfilled, or the author likes smoking pot. Anyway, all of these reasons are pretty much total crap because I don’t care about them. What I do care about is stoned high school students ruining my vacation in the small seaside state of Maryland.

Until recently, I thought the normal thing to do after getting stoned was watching reruns of Man vs. Wild and YouTube videos of some crazy Russian guy playing the Mortal Kombat theme on an accordion, dressed up as Scorpion (the Russian guy, not me…although..). I mean, that’s what I did for the six hours that I put off writing this article, and it was awesome stone-cold sober. I figure it could only be better on THP or whatever assortment of letters makes up the active ingredient in marijuana (THC? TLC? LCD? STD?).

Anyway, this is sadly not the case. Allow me to illustrate this point. Let’s say, hypothetically, that you have spent six hours watching Man vs. Wild reruns. Like any red-blooded oxygen-breathing drug-free American, you are high on life and the sudden inexplicable urge to go out into the wilderness and eat large quantities of wildlife, preferably by severing their spinal columns with your teeth. Well, thanks to the illegality of marijuana, you’re going to find yourself thwarted at every turn.

First off, apparently some city planners here in Silver Spring have been surreptitiously imbibing controlled substances, because what used to be a fairly straightforward path into the park is now being developed into some kind of gigantic Wal-Mart or middle school or hospital for crippled orphans or some such godless monstrosity. This means you have to hop over several fences and climb through a bunch of construction materials before you can find the park entrance and stake out a good hunting ground for raw squirrels. (And when you’re running around with a combat knife and a snakeskin full of your own urine, engaging in high-profile behavior is not really the best of choices).

Anyway, the point is that once you’ve managed to outrun the police and lost yourself in the rugged wilderness that is Montgomery County’s Northwest Branch Park, you don’t want to have your intense self-preservation skills interrupted. Survival is difficult work after all.

Imagine for a moment you’re knee-deep in the life-threateningly lukewarm creek water, using your bare hands to catch “survival food” like minnows or waterlogged half-eaten Taco Bell burritos: all your muscles tense as you prepare to lunge at a particularly wily half-pound cheesy bean and rice, when suddenly the air is pierced with the shrill, eardrum-rending sound of“DUUUUUUUUUDE! Dude! Hahahahahahehe kkkhhhhhh.” That’s right, the mating call of the Mid-Atlantic Spotted Pot Head.

You see, apparently Northwest Branch Park is the place to go for TV-addicted wannabe survivalists and high school stoners. However, instead of being filled with a healthy all-American desire to eat small furry woodland creatures, these degenerates are filled with the desire to inhale burning vegetative matter and then sing Avril Lavigne songs while laughing hysterically and saying the word “dude” approximately 753 times per sentence.

In my brief survival experience in Northwest Branch Park, I encountered no less than seven obnoxious high schoolers, all in varying levels of altered consciousness. And you know what? The fact that marijuana is illegal is what put them there. If cannabis were legal, all these jerks could be getting stoned in less obnoxious places, such as at their homes orin public places like restaurants or sidewalks and all the other places that legal smokers can light up… bars and airplanes. Oh wait. (Well crap, if current trends keep up, we’re going to have high school stoners and their irate nicotine-fueled teachers interrupting our next trip to the woods).

Oh, and for the record, high school stoners are not an excellent survival food. Too much fiber.