Times are tough when...

...a business columnist for the local news-rag says, in an interview, that the state could lessen its financial woes if it legalized -- and thus regulated and taxed -- marijuana and prostitution.

Ummmm, yeah.

I'm the farthest thing from a prude, in most respects. While I've never employed the services of a noffka, I have smoked a little gage in my time. Not recently, I hasten to admit; I am certainly not without sin in any event.

But the idea of government stores selling doobs, and government brothels dispensing -- shall we say -- intimate companionship, leaves me cold.

It might appeal to the political hacks. They are almost invariably stoned, though their drugs of choice are public money and the ability to pass obnoxious laws. And they certainly know about selling themselves for money....

Would making these "pleasures" legal actually raise money? Probably, but I don't want either state or national governments to have more money; I want them to have less and act sensibly with what they get.

But the revenues wouldn't be as great as they think. Put enough tax burden on weed-puffers and those engaging in the world's oldest profession, and they'll go right back underground. They'll roll their own in private, so to speak.

As far as I'm concerned, the current hideous state of our economy should suggest only one thing: our government has no business running itself so deeply into debt and expecting us to pick up the tab. The crisis is, to me, absolute proof that government waste and interference in private business must always fail.

The politicians screw us and feed us too much distorted reality as it is.. Let's not give them yet another way to do it.