There’s a marijuana generation gap.

If you’re over 30, there’s a good chance that if you inhale, you hide it.

Under 30? You probably don’t bother with the secrecy, unless you’re talking to the boss.

Many young adults I interview casually mention smoking pot the same way boomers talk about relaxing with a few beers.

As in, “We went to the beach, smoked some weed.”

The weird thing? I’m old enough to be their dad.

The interesting thing?

They’ll be voting on whether to legalize marijuana in November – along with their more secretive parents.

But not all parents who smoke are so secretive.

(Reader poll in lower right.)

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Matt Mirmak, an operations analyst for a financial services company, lives in Irvine, is married and has a nine-year-old daughter. And Mirmak, on occasion, in private, smokes weed.

How do I know? He told me.

But his public stand isn’t so much about smoking as it is about government poking its nose into an area it shouldn’t be bothering with – and wasting billions of dollars while ruining thousands of lives.

Mirmak, who grew up in Irvine and graduated from Augsburg College in Minneapolis, says he wants to “take the underground black market and bring it above ground.”

The ballot initiative, Mirmak says, will remove marijuana from the hands of juvenile gangs, allow communities to make autonomous decisions about pot and provide tax revenue.

Mirmak, who describes himself as a “17-year recovering alcoholic,” says he only rarely smokes these days. And his response for those who say legalization will lead to a generation of marijuana addicts?

“Hogwash.”

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Who’s against Prop. 19 in Orange County?

There are the usual opponents: Placentia and Garden Grove police chiefs, Anaheim and Fullerton police associations, City of Laguna Niguel, Orange Chamber of Commerce, Orange County Coalition of Police and Sheriffs and Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens.

Hutchens recently coauthored an op-ed article listing several concerns about Prop. 19. One of her main points was that it would prevent employers and law enforcement from cracking down on people who are stoned. She also urged people to read the proposal.

Good idea. But when you follow Hutchens’ advice, you read that the proposition seems to actually address her primary concern:

“This Act shall not be construed to affect, limit or amend any statute that forbids impairment while engaging in dangerous activities such as driving,” the proposition states. It adds, “the existing right of an employer to address consumption that actually impairs job performance by an employee shall not be affected.”

However, some on the anti-Prop. 19 team may surprise you.

Meet Robert Kushner of Lake Forest. At least, that’s the alias he uses in public.

Kushner is a professional pot grower. He won top honors for his Indica strain of marijuana at this summer’s Medical Cannabis Cup sponsored by High Times Magazine.

And Kushner is against Prop. 19.

His reasoning, he explains, is that medicinal marijuana patients may be left out if Proposition 19 passes.

I suspect they’ll be OK and some have told me so.

I also suspect Kushner has another concern.

Large, legal growers may undercut Kushner’s business.

Who else might be hurt if Prop. 19 passes? The Mexican drug cartels.

According to the DEA, cannabis accounts for slightly more than half of the cartels’ trade. They’ll survive, but they might be weakened if Prop. 19 passes and other states follow.

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Besides, Mirmak, who else in Orange County favors Prop. 19?

There’s the Orange County Democratic Party, retired Superior Court Judge Jim Gray, the folks over at the headquarters for NORML, the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws, and few others.

After that, it seems pretty quiet.

Or are people already voting with their wallets?

Cities such as Lake Forest and Dana Point report brisk business at medical marijuana dispensaries, even as they’re busy shutting them down. And last I looked at an online map, there were more than 75 pot shops in Orange County.

A Field Poll survey released in late September reported that Prop. 19 is up by 7 points, 49-42, with about 8 percent of voters undecided.

At first blush, the number of people in favor of the proposition seems shocking in an age in which “Just Say No” Red Ribbon Weeks are still popular. But being against drug abuse no longer automatically means being against the legalization of marijuana.

A government report in September from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration stated marijuana use has increased by 8 percent over the last decade. The report also stated the number of kids 12-17 who believed marijuana was harmful dropped from 54.7 percent in 2007 to 49.3 percent in 2009.

Those figures stand in stark contrast to the dollars we’re pouring into the war on drugs and its human toll.

The FBI tells us 858,408 people were arrested on marijuana-related charges last year, about 9 percent of them in California. That was a 1.3 percent increase from the year before. In all, pot busts represented 52 percent of all drug arrests.

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It would appear that 30 years after Sir Paul McCartney was arrested in Japan for possession of cannabis, Americans want a change in the war on drugs.

A national Angus Reid poll released in July found that 65 percent of Americans consider the war on drugs a flop.

I recently interviewed a woman who asked if I’d heard Alcoholics Anonymous’ definition for insanity. I hadn’t.

“It’s when you keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results.”

David Whiting’s column appears four days a week, dwhiting@ocregister.com.