I started watching the Ken Burns documentary Prohibition and think a point he brought up can be applied to the legalization of marijuana. He said that those who wanted to drink were up in arms that those who wanted prohibition were trying to get legislation to determine what they could and could not do. Sure, that's essentially the mentality behind any law, but this one was more personal because it was about their own bodies. They figured, if they could drink without harming anyone else (which we all know wasn't the case) then who had the right to tell them they couldn't drink. Well, alcohol is legal. Under the same thinking, I believe marijuana (and all drugs really) should be legal. It makes more sense to me to either have them all be legal or illegal. Picking and choosing shows too much transparency as to who's feeding our official's wallets.
The prison industrial complex is why Marijuana is still illegal. I don't even smoke pot, at least not in any regular sense, and I am ALL FOR LEGALIZATION. Any sane person would be.Whether you are for its legalization or not, you are paying for marijuana to be illegal. According the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 43.3% of all "Arrests for Drug Abuse Violation" are of people who are in possession of marijuana. Six percent of all drug-abuse violation arrests were for the "Sale/Manufacturing" of marijuana. In other words, a whopping 49.5% of all drug-violation arrests are connected to marijuana. Half of the population that is in prison for substance abuse is in prison for marijuana-related crimes.