A few of the Lake County Supervisors have launched an attack on marijuana. Yet, there is a drug that is used by all of us, kills more people than cancer, and yet is never referred to as a drug: food.  

Foods are chemicals which may soothe the soul, dull sharp feelings, and change consciousness. Foods can be lethal: suicide by fork. Hyperbole?

In the Korean War, and again in the Vietnam War, American dead, ages 18-21, were autopsied, and a large percentage of them had advanced arterial blockage, or atherosclerosis.

In 1993, another study was done of deceased men around 26 years of age, and almost 80 percent had coronary disease, of that group, 20 percent had 50 percent occlusion (blockage) in their main arteries to the heart, and 9 percent had more than 70 percent occlusion.

This is a major health disaster and no miracle cure is needed; simply a low fat diet will do the trick. And that would mean less than 25 percent of food calories in fat (the percentage is derived by dividing the number of calories in fat by the total calories). Few labels return such a measure. (The A.M.A. says one third, but does not support that percentage with evidence).

I used to argue with my father about diet. He would quote Socrates, “All things in moderation.” I would respond that this was an issue about threshold, and that over a certain amount of fat consumed can cause people begin to have arterial blockage.

So, I would answer, “All things in moderation” including “all things in moderation.” His death turned out to be my own most eloquent argument.

An organization I belong to had a potluck recently and there was ice cream, cakes, cookies, doughnuts, and other high fat snacks of various kinds. This is not sane behavior. We see fat people everywhere and start to think that fat is normal. No, fat is not normal, it is average, and those two notions are not the same.

High fat foods stare at us from the shelves at the strangest places, even the hardware store. That stressful trip to buy a hammer evidently needs to be soothed by a chocolate bar before emotional equilibrium can return.

So, here is a bit of absolute insanity: one needs a medical card to obtain marijuana, which by all accounts is an effective pain reliever, but not for a candy bar or cheeseburger, which will kill you at worst (over time), and necessitate a roto-rooter of the major arteries at best.

So, in a blatant example of “you spot it, you got it” we have a lot of “foodies” waddling around condemning marijuana users for trying to alleviate pain while they are on the very same mission.

“Ah,” you say, “but that’s different.” How so?

Nelson Strasser lives in Lakeport, Calif.