Next year at this time you and your buds may sit down to watch the Super Bowl and instead of eating a bowl of chips, you may be able to take a little toke on your favorite grass.

Hold onto your water pipes! A legislative debate over decriminalization of marijuana for the entire state may be in the offing.

A draft bill could be in the hands of Rep. Jeff Irwin within a month or so. While he is not predicting fast passage, he thinks the debate needs to begin.

In fact he reports it already has.

“There is far more interest than most people realize,” on both sides of the aisle, he reports. Sure it’s politically explosive but the Ann Arbor Democrat believes the public may drag the politicians into this discourse.

“Trying to lock folks up, spending 100’s of millions of dollars in courts and police, misappropriating our public safety investment against more violent crimes, all these issues are driving the public towards a more reasonable and responsible set of laws around marijuana and that’s what I would favor.”

Amazingly, this guy from Ann Arbor, where presumably a large of amount of grass is inhaled, may have found a conservative friend who is open to this discussion.

“I’m willing to discuss it but I don’t want to get too far ahead of the curve,” says the GOP chair of the Senate Appropriations committee Sen. Roger Kahn.

While he does not personally embrace decriminalization, he adds if done the right way, “it’s not so bad.”

You’re thinking, am I in California or what?

Actually if you are in Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids and Ypsilanti you are already there. Those voters have adopted laws to lower the fines for "recreational use" by adults.

Mr. Irwin thinks there could be a pot of gold to fund schools, fix the roads and fight "real" crime if Acapulco Gold is legalized.



Any tokers?

Watch "Off the Record with Tim Skubick" online anytime at video.wkar.org