There are a lot of stories about the ill effects of marijuana. Most are exaggerations and some are outright lies. Yet, there are also some truths about the ill effects of marijuana. But whether marijuana is bad for you or not, neither are justifications, or rationales, for legalizing or maintaining the prohibition against marijuana.
If marijuana being bad for you is justification enough to keep it illegal, then alcohol prohibition should never have been repealed. You think marijuana is bad? Alcohol kills more people, causes more marital strife, and wreaks havoc on our social system more than marijuana. Yet it’s legal.
The real reason for legalizing marijuana? Because the war against it has failed. Despite millions and millions of dollars being dump into the “war on drugs” year after year the use of marijuana continues. And any increase or decrease has almost nothing to do with law enforcement.
Ultimately legalization will occur because the amount of money the governments – state and federal – can make on taxing marijuana sales will be above and beyond what is made from alcohol sales. At least for the first few years until the marijuana industry because as big and powerful as the alcohol industry. Then there will be decreases in taxing. By then alcohol taxes will probably go up.
Well, one can hope, right?
The laws against marijuana were not to protect the public from pot but to protect many large corporations from the competition of hemp. The Feds DELIBERATELY and IMPROPERLY equated hemp to marijuana and since most pot use (at the time) was by minorities, Anslinger et al could harass them and keep the corporations happy.