Brooks and Marcus have both written your basic "yes I smoked pot but it should be illegal for other people to do so" columns. Marcus explicitly says in like paragraph 27 that people shouldn't be thrown in jail for it, but just what does making it illegal mean then? In practice it means that people like David Brooks and Ruth Marcus don't go to jail for drug possession, but lots of other people do. Because that's how things work.
They both want Official Disapproval of activities they happily participated in once upon a time because kids today, but Offical Disapproval means people go to jail. Not Brooks and Marcus of course, or their kids, but other people.
