Sounding Off:

I usually read Steve Smith’s column so I can see how not not to speak to people about ethics and character. He’s so sanctimonious it makes me want to do the wrong thing.

He makes doing the right thing sound like something jerky, judgmental and tainted. I’m also really weary of his incessant cheap shots thrown at President Obama.

Yeah, we get it, Steve: You don’t like the Obama administration. Do you have to find a way to slide it into almost every column you write?

This week’s column was just lazy and inaccurate writing (Kids These Days: “Adult consistency has gone to pot,” March 9).

Smith’s assertions that the federal government “decided our vote didn’t matter” and “tried various tactics to enforce the federal law” are simply ridiculous.

The government is bound by its laws and must enforce them until they are changed. He writes, “talk is cheap” when referring to Atty. Gen. Eric Holder’s statement that he will no longer pursue distributors of medical marijuana, then cites a raid on a Culver City location as proof that Holder must have been lying.

If he had bothered to check, Smith would know that Holder said the United States would no longer pursue medical marijuana clinics that follow state laws pertaining to those clinics.

Surely, Steve, you don’t imagine that every single medical marijuana clinic in Los Angeles (there are hundreds) is totally following the law. I work in the field of drug education, and I regularly see people with medical marijuana prescriptions that are used for one purpose — so the bearer can get high without fear of legal consequence.

Thousands of people are gaming the system simply because they can. I see it not as a mixed message that the state has approved the use of medical weed.

Holder has said he will not pursue lawful clinics, and yet the occasional clinic is still raided. Maybe, just maybe, that raided clinic was operating outside the law and deserved to be raided.

I think kids can still look forward to voting, Steve, and perhaps you can teach them to vote for a legislator who has the guts to move marijuana out of schedule one and into schedule two, where it can then be distributed under the watchful eye of pharmacists after being checked for purity (pesticides and herbicides), potency and cleanliness (fungi and bacteria).

Once marijuana is distributed the way all the other medicines are, we can all rest a little easier knowing that people who actually need the medical benefits of marijuana can get it and yet some currently healthy kid with a bogus prescription for medical marijuana won’t be getting stoned on weed he bought at some storefront clinic with zero oversight.

JONATHAN HEBBARD lives in Costa Mesa.