Perhaps no venue provokes as much fear as “The Farm,” except maybe Death Valley. Anyone familiar with the Angola State Penitentiary either has his own stories about the prison or knows someone locked up within its menacing fences. Almost everyone from New Orleans remembers the fear stoked by Mayor Ray Nagin, who promised a one-way trip to The Farm for anyone caught looting in the aftermath of Katrina. The Farm — the country’s largest maximum security prison — isn’t without its tourist attractions. In addition to housing some of the most hardened criminals in the nation, Angola is also home to the state’s most popular (and popularized) prison rodeo, as well as the aptly named Prison View Golf Course, featuring nine holes of incarcerated “jailbirdies.” Last week’s news of the Obama Administration telling federal authorities not to arrest those possessing or distributing legal medical marijuana in applicable states dramatically localizes control over pot, as states and local communities take their cue from the federal government on this issue. As such, Louisiana should stand out by repairing one of the biggest travesties involving drug policy and sentencing disparities. I’m talking about a reinvention of “The Farm.” Let’s get rid of the Prison View Golf Course and revert the penitentiary to its original stated purpose. Angola should be transformed into a legal marijuana farm, tended to and nurtured by inmates. Think about this rationally for a minute. The national tide is turning in favor of marijuana reform. Many bigger domestic battles are being waged in Congress, but an opportunity is slowly emerging to change archaic drug policies in America. On a regular basis, stories are filtering north from the deadly battles being waged by Mexican drug cartels. To date, more than half of the financing for these cartels comes from marijuana sales north of the border. Other than the usual arguments for marijuana legalization — pot has never killed anyone by overdose, it relieves severe nausea and depression and its prohibition serves the same purpose alcohol prohibition did in the 1930s, only with much deadlier results — the economic benefit of marijuana legalization is becoming more common sense to mainstream America than ever before.  The combined reduction in police expenditures — after all, if cops aren’t spending their time arresting a couple of idiot stoners in Miller Hall, they’d be on the street, maybe in time to prevent a double homicide — and appropriate taxation by local government could generate serious, budget-cut-busting revenue. If Americans could buy legal marijuana from American suppliers, instead of giving our toke money to Mexican drug cartels, violence would presumably decrease while states could alleviate serious budgetary problems.This push for legalization could have an unlikely ally in Louisiana — namely, Student Government President Stuart Watkins, who indicated in an interview he’d be “open to considering” a call to the Louisiana legislature to decriminalize marijuana. “I don’t know much about it, but I’d definitely be open to considering it,” Watkins told me in his office. Decriminalization would be a much easier step than appropriating the whole of The Farm’s golf course to medical marijuana, but Angola inmates should be moving closer to becoming more productive citizens in their rehabilitation. The penitentiary houses an overwhelming number of violent criminals, while simple possessors are designated to local, less secure facilities. The Farm’s prison population could be put to better use than tending the grounds of an antiquated, elitist pastoral activity. They could be learning more about botany and business at once, all while cultivating a product so high in demand, more than 100 million Americans have admitted to trying at least once. Let’s end the façade of the “dangers of marijuana” and the “gateway” status of pot and accept the new surge of acceptance of medical pot. Otherwise, the opportunity to transform and remake “The Farm” could go up in smoke.Eric Freeman, Jr. is a 22-year-old political science senior from New Orleans. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_efreeman.– – – -Contact Eric Freeman Jr. at [email protected]