Recently, my grandfather on my dad’s side passed away after 86 years of being the best… Recently, my grandfather on my dad’s side passed away after 86 years of being the best grandfather ever. Although I loved him dearly, his death was not the depressing death-in-the-family experience that often occurs. For me, he had left us several years ago.

My grandfather suffered from advanced stages of Alzheimer’s, a progressive brain disorder that steadily destroys a person’s memory and ability to learn, reason and communicate. He was hospitalized for the final years of his life because of the severity of his condition, for which there is no cure.

Another fun attribute of Alzheimer’s is that, according to the American Health Assistance Foundation, “all offspring in the same generation have a 50/50 chance of developing [it] if one of their parents had it.”

And that means my dad is right in the gun sights of this depressing condition.

Luckily, the Scripps Research Institute in California has published some new research indicating that a cure may be hidden in an unlikely – and hilarious – source.

As my good friend Snoop Dogg might say, a tonic might be found in some bubonic chronic. That’s right, the active ingredient in marijuana may reduce inflammation and deposits in the brain, and thus prevent the mental decline associated with Alzheimer’s.

If you have any experience with reefer enthusiasts, this may seem highly dubious, or at the very least, counterintuitive.

“Hey,” you say, “but my roommate can’t remember expletive for anything.”

To which I rejoin, “Shut up! It’s science!”

Now that I have this information, exactly how can I broach this subject with my father – other than publishing my intentions in a student newspaper read by both of my parents (Hi, Mom).

I figure it begins with a flushed disclaimer explaining that I have no experience with drugs because I am the picture of a well-raised, above-the-influence son. And then, after their resulting panic attack and requisite rifling through my possessions for “all the pots,” a real discussion can begin.

Should I convince them, I think my larger concern is what my father would be like as a habitual ganja user. I mean, he grew up in the early ’60s and ’70s, but in New Zealand, and as such I doubt he ever experimented.

I think of some of my friends and what they’re like: hungry, free-associating, layabouts with silly grins and messy apartments. My dad is one of those people who loves his job to death, so I don’t think I have to worry about the lazy bit. But the free-associating humor might be slightly unsettling.

As a professor of chemistry – who is, probably as we speak, talking someone’s ear off about the periodic table – I can only imagine what he’d be like flying high. “You know, the isomeric properties of proteins, especially when you consider the knowledge accumulated from X-ray crystal structures that have been used to make resonance assignments for the amino acid side chains of dihydrofolate reductase, are a lot like that one episode of ‘Friends’ where Chandler was all like going crazy when he met Ursula, you know, Phoebe’s twin. I mean, if you understand the underlying principles governing isomer sets and if Ursula had a goatee