Last night the United States Senate voted to double the penalties for the nation’s newest existential threat: brownies made with marijuana!

The Senate unanimously passed Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)’s “Saving Kids from Dangerous Drugs Act of 2009″ (S. 258) that targets pot brownies and other marijuana edibles preferred by some medical marijuana patients. The bill next moves to the House; if it passes that chamber, anyone making pot brownies or similar products could be subject to double the fines and jail time for regular marijuana.

Oh, good grief. The excuse given for this latest big government nuttiness? Yup, you guessed it: the children:

Marijuana prohibitionists often hide behind vague threats to children, and DiFi’s bill is no different. Her “Saving Kids from Dangerous Drugs Act” is framed to make politicians afraid to oppose. “How dare you voted against saving kids from dangerous drugs?” But DiFi doubled down on the “Reefer Madness”-style hysteria. In championing this bill, Feinstein raised the spectre of “candy flavored meth“ as the target of her bill.

Candy-flavored meth? 

Here’s the invaluable Snopes (admittedly from 2007, but that’s when Feinstein first started peddling this nonsense — in partnership, needless to say, with a Republican co-conspirator, Chuck Grassley) on this menace to the nation. Read it and ponder again the foolishness that is Washington, D.C.