You have to distinguish between something that is illegal and both illegal and immoral. Pot is illegal, but it is not immoral. Nobody much cares if you smoke pot. Tax evasion is illegal, but not immoral, albeit it is a very serious crime in the eyes of the authorities. Tax evaders do serious time, even if they are famous actors. Sex with a child in contrast is both illegal and immoral. People freak if they learn a registered sex offender is living on their block. It's cool to smoke pot or do blow, but doing your 6 year old step-daughter or niece is not too cool.
Your right on many things, but this is America and nothing makes sense! like Why is weed just a traffic fine in one state and 5 yr Prison term in a other state?
The main problem is the US federal government, from Wikipedia: As a Schedule I drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970, marijuana (cannabis) is considered to have "no accepted medical use" and is illegal for any reason, with the exception of FDA-approved research programs.... The federal government of the United States continues to argue that smoked cannabis has no recognized medical purpose (pointing to a definition of "medical purpose" published by the DEA, not the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, or the office of the U. S. Surgeon General and the U. S. Public Health Service) -- many officials point to the difficulty of regulating dosage (a problem for treatment as well as research) despite the availability (in Canada and the U. K.) of dosage-controlled Sativex. One way to solve the problem is to get the US Supreme Court to find a right to smoke pot somewhere in the US Constitution. It's probably in there immediately after the part about the right for gay people to marry. Alternatively, get Congress to pass legislation repealing pot as a drug subject to the Controlled Substances Act, and get Obama to sign it.
Politicians want control, not freedom. Freedom has to be <b>fought for</b> constantly, and today's generation doesn't have a whole lot of fighting spirit left. Part of the problem is modern demographics: Successful resistance to bad gov't policies tends to come from young, college aged people.* We have very few of those who are willing to do anything at all to make their nation a better place to live. On the other hand we have absolutely no shortage of status-quo loving sheep who have every intention of sitting idly by as politicians and lawyers completely ruin our country. *Recommended reading= This book!: <img src=http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51c1SbOogfL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg> After a few pages you'll probably start thinking "I'm probably too old for this book. It was written for a younger audience than I." In fact, after just a couple pages I even put this down for a few weeks before giving it a second chance. Just keep reading, and you'll totally appreciate why you are absolutely NOT too old for this book! Nobody is.
If Uncle Sam legalized drugs and taxed the bejebbers out of them, expenditures would rise by 120% of the additional revenues. More money = going broke faster in a messed up system, just like lottery winners.
So what you are saying is that about 60,000 people per state use coke. Maybe that alone on South Beach. Imagine the savings and then the earnings potential throught taxation and running bear aint too far off, but thats not the point.
"Because the Canadian marijuana industry is illegal, it operates almost entirely off the books, generating virtually no tax revenue and precious few records. So estimates of what it's worth to the B.C. economy are all over the map. But even the small numbers are big, with estimates starting at around $3 billion a year and rising as high as $20 billion, double the legal revenue generated by B.C.'s forest industry. The Wikipedia puts the number at $6 billion. Britainâs Guardian newspaper puts it at $20 billion. In 2006, the B.C. forest industry's direct economic activity totalled about $10 billion, representing 7.4 per cent of the province's GDP." http://www.rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/djclimenhaga/2010/10/bad-news-bc-decriminalization-coming-usa-0 last weekend: "The 10 people shot on Vancouver's westside early Sunday morning were attending a party at Best Neighbours restaurant for gang members, none were innocent bystanders Vancouver police said Monday." http://www.vancouversun.com/news/As...lowing+night+terror+mayhem/3965577/story.html no deaths this time, gang murder totals in the past couple of years are into a couple of score including 2 innocent victims executed because of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. shootings have occurred in very public places, parking lots of malls on the street beside shops, while a car is being driven, but so far no bystander has been hit while the action is - or is that was ? - out of character for Vancouver, it doesn't come close compared to other cities in the US for instance, but nothing comes close to what's happening in Mexico where drug/gang murders have topped 11,000 this year and estimated to be around 30,000 for the last 4 years, but concerning is the idea that Mexico may be becoming a 'failed state' what's going on with 'drug crime' seems very similar to the US 'Prohibition', between 1919-33 when " . . . the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol were banned nationally as mandated in the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution." and judging by the old movies I've watched ". . . it tended to undermine society by other means, as it stimulated the proliferation of rampant underground, organized and widespread criminal activity." see 'Society' in the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States it seems then that Prohibition creates a much larger problem rather than preventing what isn't a problem to begin with