Until we win World War III and crush the evildoers in what our president calls a “struggle for civilization” -all law enforcement people have to work on THAT, and not on busting Willie Nelson. This week, Willie Nelson, whom Donald Rumsfeld calls the “number two man in alQaeda” – was the victim of a pointless search that revealed he had with him a mere pound and a half of marijuana and a fifth of a pound of psychedelic mushrooms – or as Willie calls it, breakfast.

That’s right, cops in Louisiana pulled over his tour bus and searched it based on probably cause, the probable cause being it contained Willie Nelson. The Fuzz then hassled Willie, demanded he cut his hair and shot Peter Fonda off his motorcycle. I mean, Louisiana, come on, your state was under water a year ago – if the man wants some of it for his bong, let him. Yes, he had mushrooms – he’s a hundred year old hippie, they were growing in his hair.

Are we trying to send a message to other aging celebrities who might be thinking about recreational drug use? Watch out, Wilfred Brimley, Alberto Gonzales wants to know what you’re sprinkling on your Quaker Oats.

Everybody’s got something, but if there’s one drug above all we should be cracking down on, it’s oil. Oil is the addiction poisoning our lungs, and our political system, and our foreign policy. Willie Nelson, high though he might have been, was on a bus that didn’t pollute anything, because it runs on bio-diesel. But bio-diesel threatens the profits of Big Oil, which means the only way we’re ever going to legalize pot in this country is to convince Bush and Cheney it’s a petroleum product. And it may be, all my bongs have a carburetor.

Hemp is another product that threaten oil and timber profits, because it has so many uses, like rope and bio-fuel and textiles. The Declaration of Independence is written on it. President Bush could use it to make another “Mission Accomplished” banner. If he could only accomplish a mission.

But that’s hard when you lose focus. Let’s focus on defending America, and leave the singers and the medical marijuana patients alone. Because, believe me, when you bite into one of their special baked goods, in about 20 minutes you’ll be saying, “You’re doing a heckuva job, brownie.: