It may be coming sooner than you think (or very much later than you had hoped). There are currently bills going through the legislatures of both CA and WA that will do just that.  My state, WA, actually has 3 different options going. 2 bills and an initiative :) Go Washington!

   Honestly it is about time we ended the prohibition on recreational drugs, it didn't work with alcohol, why should we think it would work on drugs? In these days of hard economic times and strained budgets, it makes sense to legalize and tax now. The states particularly are in dire straits...

     The Obama administration has already clearly given the message that they won't let the Federal laws over ride anything the states pass as law regarding drugs. Which is how it ought to be according to our Constitution. 

        The main stream media always talks about us being in 2 wars... Not true, we are actually in 3. We have a nasty and costly war going on on our southern border with the cartels. Why? Because drugs are illegal in this country and there is lots of money to be made catering to those who are gonna use drugs regardless of whether it's illegal or not. In all honesty the "Drug War" has been failing for a long time. Anyone who wants literally anything, can get it with relatively little hassle anyway.

      While pot is a start, I would go further and legalize any kind of recreational drug use. To me it's a national security issue... Think about this, if the cartels can get hundreds of tons of drugs across our borders every year... How easy would it be to slip in the occasional Al Queda operative? The cartels will do anything for money...

    But if you just legalized it all,taxed and regulated it... The cartels would collapse. Or at least have to go legal, which if done right would eliminate a lot of the violence. Hell, it could probably do good for the world economy as well. The worldwide illegal drug market is huge but obviously unregulated... And untaxed by either the producing or customer nations. There is a huge amount of money flowing in that market that could be brought into the world economy. And you know once the the US goes legal, the rest of the world will follow. A lot of the reason most liberal countries still have drug laws on the books is because of the US and ties to aid money.

        It might even give the actual growers in drug producing countries a legal avenue to sell their product at a fair market value. As opposed to being payed almost nothing, while the cartels or local warlords rake in the money.  It could give a lot of people in failed or failing countries a legitimate means of earning a living as opposed to gravitating to the extremists and criminals as a means to feed their families.

    And for those who think this will lead to a huge spike in drug use, I would point you to Portugal, the only country in the world to legalize use of anything including coke, heroin and meth.  By this TIME report, it's been a resounding success... drug use is actually down all across the board. Particularly among teens, simply because it is regulated.  We'll never stop all kids from using drugs, just as we have never stopped them from smoking or drinking. But it does get harder for kids to get when the state actually has some sort of control over the market.

And they are not even taxing it...

   Much as I hate the State Store system in Washington, and think it is a huge waste of money... I would rather have all drugs legal and have to go to a State store to get them. It's regulated then, as it is now any kid can get drugs from the underground market.  Eliminate the underground market and you will see less kids using at an early age.

    Oh and we are all about being green these days? Pot is an incredibly efficient plant that could seriously reduce our overall carbon footprint :) There are a lot of ways hemp ( i.e. pot) can be used in industry that are more efficient and carbon friendly than current methods. In terms of fiber and oil that can be produced from an acre, hemp is far better than a lot of crops we are using for biofuel.  But because the plant is illegal, it can't easily be grown for industrial purposes. Could be another green industry :)

    I think we are in a climate of hard budgets and re-assessing our priorities. We need to reduce spending and increase revenue. Legalizing would do that and more...  More people have died due to this unacknowledged war than have died in Afghanistan this past year.

    Perhaps we could not only have a reasonable drug policy in this country, but also generate a good bit of money towards the deficit that Bush left us with. California does lead the country in a lot of ways, and given their budget woes, I can easily see this passing as a way to balance the budget.  If CA passes legalization, the rest of the country will eventually follow :)


My 2cp...