I realize a lot of my fellow Republicans don't like to think of free-market capitalism when it comes to marijuana. But capitalism has a way of getting desired products to consumers regardless of attempts by the political class to regulate it.

I witnessed that the other evening as I was out at a bar watching the legendary Billy Hector play guitar. I ran into a friend of mine who likes to smoke marijuana and, in the interests of journalistic research, I asked him what he thought of the ongoing effort in the state Legislature to legalize pot.

It wouldn't make much difference to him, he said. He pulled out one of those vape pens, the kind cigarette smokers often use to get a nicotine rush without all that harmful smoke. They work with pot just as well, he said, and no one can tell the difference.

He proceeded to show me how it works. No one noticed.

At that point I came to a conclusion that I imagine a majority of our legislators are coming to: The war on marijuana is over. Marijuana won. There's not much anyone can do about it - except of course try to cash in on the tax revenue.

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As a non-smoker who prefers to consume his rock-and-roll with the aid of microbrewed beer, I had only a vague idea of what a vape pen is. More research was in order. So the next day I spoke with a friend of a friend who is an expert in the field.

It turns out that a vape pipe is a small, battery-powered device that can "vaporize" - hence the term "vape" - an oil. That oil can be saturated with nicotine for those who want a safer alternative to cigarettes or with THC for those who want to get a buzz.

Some police departments are trying to crack down, my new friend said. But if they can't tell what's in the pen it's hard to charge the owner with anything.

Not only that, he said, but there are many types of edible cannabis coming into the state from places like Colorado and California where pot has been legalized. He personally has a medical marijuana card and buys his legally here in Jersey. But he said he knows plenty of people who simply order their cannabis through the mail.

"The biggest drug dealer is the U.S. Postal Service," he said. "Back in early 2000s, it was really hard to get any good marijuana at all. Nowadays there is just so much stuff that the market is saturated."

That seems to be the case. And I felt sorry for Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal when he tried to sort this all out in a conference call with journalists Wednesday morning.

Grewal did his best to lay out a policy for municipal prosecutors to follow as they wait for the governor and legislative leaders to act on what they promise will be a bill with provisions for expungement of prior convictions.

Until such a bill is passed, he said, "a municipal prosecutor may not adopt a categorical policy of refusing to seek convictions for marijuana." But a prosecutor should "exercise discretion" and move toward "social justice" as we await action by the Legislature, he said.

I took that as a cry for help from the AG. The No. 1 source of that help at the moment is Senate President Steve Sweeney.

When I called the Gloucester County Democrat, he said he is hoping to send a bill to his fellow Democrat, Gov. Phil Murphy, by the end of September.

"It's just a matter of fine-tuning it," Sweeney said. "The sponsors are now kind of in the same church and it's just a matter of getting to the same pew."

Many legislators don't want to come out in favor of a legalization bill until they're sure it will pass, he said. But once the final package is put together, Sweeney said, he expects to get the needed 21 votes in the Senate while Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin corrals 41 votes in his house.

Sweeney has traveled to Colorado with a delegation to see how legalization is working there. He agreed with my friend that there are so many different ways of dispensing cannabis in other states that it's impossible to exclude them from Jersey.

"There are edibles being developed, lozenges that have no smell," he said. "There's a wide variety of ways people can consume it other than inhaling smoke."

Sweeney said state regulation would actually make things safer for consumers. My friend agreed.

"It's out of the bag," he said. "There's no stopping it, so they might as well do what they can to capitalize on it."

Capitalize on capitalism?

I'll drink to that.