According to NORML:
Marijuana is the third most popular recreational drug in America (behind only alcohol and tobacco), and has been used by nearly 100 million Americans. According to government surveys, some 25 million Americans have smoked marijuana in the past year, and more than 14 million do so regularly despite harsh laws against its use. Our public policies should reflect this reality, not deny it.
Our kids can buy pot more easily than they can purchase cigarettes or alcohol. I smoked weed when I was in high school in the late 60's. It was cheap and easy for me to procure. I never once witnessed any of my peers have a bad reaction or any physical or mental damage from smoking a joint. It did not lead me into further drug abuse.
I never smoked tobacco and I never drank heavily. I knew that both those drugs could negatively impact my health. I smoked a little weed when I needed a break from my reality. Many kids I went to school with also smoked weed. They were good students, and they never caused any trouble. They quietly smoked a joint, ate a bag of potato chips, and kicked back to listen to music. The GOOD KIDS used to get drunk, and get into trouble.
Woodstock demonstrated that thousands of pot-smoking, hippie, liberals could come together and cooperate with one another peacefully.
NORML goes on:
NORML's mission is to move public opinion sufficiently to legalize the responsible use of marijuana by adults, and to serve as an advocate for consumers to assure they have access to high quality marijuana that is safe, convenient and affordable.
Marijuana is far less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco. Around 50,000 people die each year from alcohol poisoning. Similarly, more than 400,000 deaths each year are attributed to tobacco smoking. By comparison, marijuana is nontoxic and cannot cause death by overdose.
Follow me below the break for more discussion.
Enforcing marijuana prohibition costs taxpayers an estimated $10 billion annually and results in the arrest of more than 693,000 individuals per year -- far more than the total number of arrestees for all violent crimes combined, including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
What if we spent that money to help people live without needing drugs as a crutch? As long as we continue to spend our tax dollars to catch and punish drug users, the annual expenditure to catch, prosecute, and punish them will continue to rise without helping to solve the actual problems that are leading to drug abuse in our society.
Of those charged with marijuana violations, approximately 88 percent, about 609,000Americans were charged with possession only. The remaining individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that includes all cultivation offenses, even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use. Recently enacted changes in law in Colorado and Washington resulted in approximately 16,000 fewer marijuana arrests in those states in 2013.
Most of those being caught and prosecuted are users who are arrested with small quanities of some illegal or illegally obtained drug. Many, under the three strike laws, end up serving very long prison sentances. This is more drain on the taxpayer's purse. At what point do we simply refuse to fund such irresponsible use of public funds?
Driven by the Drug War, the U.S. prison population is six to ten times as high as most Western European nations. The United States is a close second only to Russia in its rate of incarceration per 100,000 people. In 2013, more than 693,000 people were arrested in this country for marijuana-related offenses alone.
According to:
"Altered State? Assessing How Marijuana Legalization in California Could Influence Marijuana Consumption and Public Budgets."
The gateway effect, if it exists, has at least two potential and quite different sources (MacCoun, 1998). One interpretation is that it is an effect of the drug use itself (e.g., trying marijuana increases the taste for other drugs or leads users to believe that other substances are more pleasurable or less risky than previously supposed). A second interpretation stresses peer groups and social interactions. Acquiring and using marijuana regularly may lead to differentially associating with peers who have attitudes and behaviors that are prodrug generally, not only with respect to marijuana. One version of this is the possibility that those peers will include people who sell other drugs, reducing the difficulty of locating potential supplies. If the latter is the explanation, then legalization might reduce the likelihood of moving on to harder drugs compared to the current situation.
I believe that our young people are wise enough to see how ridiculous our current drug laws are, and how hypocritically they are administered. This establishes an atmosphere of disrespect for our rule of law. The migration from one illegal drug to another seems a very small step.
If Marijuana were legal and regulated, the atmosphere of disrespect would slowly lessen. When considering moving from the legal use of a herb, to the illegal use of a drug, the step would seem enormous. Many would think again about their proposed action, and choose not to break the law.
The overall savings in terms of tax dollars could be used to fund programs aimed at making life better for our at-risk citizens.
This would have, as a side benifit, the affect of rendering the DEA unnecessary. We could empty our prisons, and put those men and women to work rebuilding our infrastructure.