In light of the new ridiculous state law that makes it a crime to sell pipes and bongs in Florida, we felt it was an opportune time to express why we think pipes and bongs should not only be sold anywhere and everywhere — it would be profitable for girl scouts to sell bongs with cookies — but also why marijuana should be legalized and decriminalized in the first place.

The new law makes it so that stores may sell bongs or pipes only if they have a state license to sell tobacco and derive 75 percent of their revenue from tobacco products or no more than 25 percent from smoking devices. If lawmakers think this will really curb people from smoking pot, then they must be high on something strong.

Why not make it illegal to sell anything that could possibly be used to smoke, like plastic soda bottles? While you’re at it, get rid of aluminum cans, cigarette paper and Sharpies.

Thankfully, there are pending lawsuits to counteract this insanity.

Instead of focusing on ways to keep people from smoking pot, why not create some debate in Florida about how beneficial legalizing pot could be for the state?

Marijuana is just a plant with a chemical in it that makes you feel a certain way when you smoke it. But to someone dying from cancer, pot can be one of the few things to make them feel human as they go through brutal chemotherapy. Instead of backward legislation to ban smoking devices, we hope Florida can push for medical marijuana dispensaries.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem likely to happen any time soon considering California, a liberal state that’s had medical marijuana dispensaries for some time, has shut down many of its dispensaries.

Marijuana medical dispensaries will not only create jobs in a weak economy, but can also spur people to place less of a needless stigma on smoking pot.

After all, the stuff has proven to be way less dangerous than tobacco or alcohol. Some act as though this entire country would go crazy if we decided to legalize pot. But you know what would happen overnight should it one day become legal in Florida or even in the U.S.?

Absolutely nothing.

Except maybe someone’s life wouldn’t be ruined should they be caught with just a small amount of pot on them.

Aside from being able to explore its medical benefits, legalizing pot could save small farms that are being bought out by big corporations, help save tax money currently being used to fund our prisons — there were more than 840,000 marijuana-related arrests in 2008, according to drugwarfacts.org — and can help keep people from worse drugs. We can take the money out of the hands of drug dealers and put it into a legitimate American business.

Legalizing pot would make it nothing more than something you can buy from your local grocer or farmer, and, like cigarettes, it’s likely people will continue to buy it no matter how it’s taxed. Think of what the state could do with that extra tax money. We bet even Tea Partyers wouldn’t care about a high marijuana tax.

Let’s sum it up this way, in case you still aren’t sure.

Pot: legalize it, tax it to high heavens, and fix our failing schools.