Please explain why weed is OK but menthols are not?

Have I got this right — marijuana is now legal in Massachusetts, but in six months, menthol cigarettes won’t be?

I suppose Tall Deval could still do the right thing and veto this latest legislative overreach, but I wouldn’t bet a carton of Newports on it.

Have these solons on Beacon Hill ever heard of Prohibition? For that matter, have they ever heard of New Hampshire?

“I was at the VFW Post last weekend,” Rep. Dave DeCoste (R-Norwell) was saying on my radio show earlier this week, “and one of the guys said to me, ‘What are you people thinking of? Now I’m going to drive to New Hampshire and pick up cartons for everybody.’ ”  

If menthols are outlawed, only outlaws will have menthol. And New Hampshire, of course.

No one thinks smoking cigarettes is a good idea, but how much Big Nanny can any individual state take? Is this really the sort of first-in-the-nation legislation you want to be bragging about tomorrow when over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house you go?

It appears menthol cigarettes were caught up as the vice-to-be-named later in Tall Deval’s recent vaping shakedown. Speaking of which, isn’t it odd how most vaping is apparently okay again, now that a 75% excise tax has been imposed, kinda like even after the referendum approval, marijuana legalization was still … stalled, until the tax could be jacked up for the benefit of the hackerama.

The virtue-signalers are of course saying they’re doing it for the “communities of color,” because blacks are disproportionately fans of menthols, as are younger smokers, which means I guess that they also did it “for the children.”

But as Sen. Don Humason (R-Westfield) pointed out in the debate last week, if you’re old enough to vote and join the military at age 18, “You are certainly smart enough to make up your mind for yourself.”

In 49 states you are, but apparently not in Massachusetts.

The vote in the Senate, by the way, was 32-6.

How does it make any sense to ban one kind of cigarette, but not any other types? It’s like banning, say, bourbon, but not vodka or Scotch.

Given the crackpot makeup of the Legislature, perhaps the only way to have stopped this would have been to point out that carbon emissions are going to increase as more people drive to the Granite State to buy their fix. Banning menthol cigarettes means polar bears will die.

Or how about this argument:

“Mr. Speaker, you may not care about tax-paying law-abiding American citizens, but do you realize that many illegal immigrant fentanyl dealers in Lawrence prefer menthol cigarettes, and that to deny them their smoke of choice is a hate crime.”

I went to college in North Carolina in the 1970s, when there was no sales tax on cigarettes. So whenever I drove back to Massachusetts, I would always load up the trunk of my ’59 Chevy Impala with cartons of untaxed cigarettes — being a butt bootlegger was a great gig. Not only did I make a few bucks per carton, but all my customers were happy and grateful.

I mainly stocked Marlboros and Winstons, with some unfiltered Camels, Pall Malls and Luckies for the older crowd. Menthols — Kools were the big brand then, until into the 1980s — were an afterthought.

But if I ever got back into cigarette smuggling, I’d go strictly with Newports, and maybe a few Kools, Salems and Marlboro menthols. If something’s illegal, the profit margin’s higher. That’s Economics 101.

Once methols are outlawed, business is going to be booming. Do they still make those loser menthol brands like Alpine and Belair? Come June 1, I’ll bet you could even move some of them, if they’re still around.

Well, thanks to our idiotic Legislature, New Hampshire has a lot to be grateful for tomorrow — skyrocketing gas taxes, charging for grocery bags and now this.

Do you remember Boston City Councilor Albert Leo “Dapper” O’Neil? He would have turned 100 next year, but he smoked … Kools. Two packs a day. The Dap still made it to 87.

I know what Dapper would be saying if he’d lived to see his beloved Kools outlawed.

“It’s enough to make you want to throw up on TV.”