You can't make this up:

Weed welfare? That's what the Berkeley City Council in California has unanimously approved, ordering medical marijuana dispensaries to donate 2 percent of their stash to patients making less than $32,000 a year.

Impressive. A unanimous vote. No doubt a lot of compassionate people on that city council.

Well, as the Fox News story reports, not everyone agrees with the decision:

Berkeley's decision to effectively order weed redistribution is prompting a vocal backlash. Bishop Ron Allen, a former addict and head of the International Faith Based Coalition, told Fox News he doesn't understand why the California city would want to dump pot on the impoverished. "It's ludicrous, over-the-top madness," Allen said. "Why would Berkeley City Council want to keep their poverty-stricken under-served high, in poverty and lethargic?"

Because if they were not high, in poverty and lethargic they would not need government help. If they did not need government help there would be no need for the welfare state. If there was no need for the welfare state there would be no need for lavishly paid government bureaucrats. And government expansionists could no longer express their compassion for the high, the poor and the lethargic by means of other people's money.

But perhaps the best thing about dispensing weed to people, from a statist perspective, is that the recipients become complacent and easy-going subjects of government. Fox News again:

One [medical marijuana] recipient, Arnie Passman, a poet and activist, said he's couldn't remember exactly how long he had been given medical marijuana or why. "It could be for my allergies, or my arthritis -- you know what happens to us folks: We forget," Passman, 78, told the newspaper.

Obviously, the consumption of pot has nothing to do with Passman the Poet's memory losses. But that's beside the point. What matters here is that the city council members can feel the compassion as they walk down the street among their high, poor and lethargic neighbors.

The problem, though, is that compassion trips, like trips on pot, tend to wear off after a while. So Pete will have to find new ways to be good to Paul with Pat's money. Therefore, out of compassion – and totally free – let me offer the Berkeley city council a couple of ideas for future compassion trips: hand out cigarettes to low-income smokers, wine to street bums and Penthouse to sex addicts.

All the nation's pathologically promiscuous potheads would quickly relocate to Berkeley and secure re-election of the city council for the foreseeable future. Or, at least, as much of it as you can see through the weed-smoke wipeout.