It’s long overdue, there are no logical counterpoints towards keeping it illegal.

What people forget when they argue why they don’t like marijuana, they forget it’s usage includes criminal penalties.

They forget drinking alcohol and consuming tobacco can have equal if not worse effects, you can enjoy these substances with no fear of criminal recourse.

They can’t put 2 +2 together because they think their personal opinion warrants it continually carrying a criminal penalty.

We’re all aware marijuana is bad for you, once you get past this you need to look at the bigger picture. I could go down a list of legal substances that are bad for you, that’s not a reason for keeping it illegal.

I agree with you, pot should never have been banned in the first place. There really is no good reason it should be illegal. It was banned for totally political reasons. The reason it’s -still- illegal is because no politician wants to go out on a limb and propose re-legalizing it because he knows he’ll immediately be labeled ‘soft on drugs’ by his opposition.

This is why medical marijuana didn’t come down from above, from politicians and state legislatures, but up from below, in ballot initiatives. All real change comes up from the people, not down from leaders. Leaders have too much invested in the status quo.

If we were smart, we’d let California legalize pot and leave them alone to see if all the bad things happen that are predicted by anti-drug forces. See if there’s a spike in DUIs, more school dropouts, more unplanned pregnancies, grade-school kids showing up stoned, or a rise in narcotic addiction because of the ‘gateway effect’. If not, then we could start legalizing it elsewhere. If so, then we know the good people of California (there must be some!) brought this on themselves. My guess is that you wouldn’t see any of this stuff, and that’s why the anti-drug people don’t want pot legalized, even if it’s the will of the people.

It’s looking like the proposition might well pass. To me, the question is: What then? Several large cities and counties in the state announced a long time ago that they wouldn’t waste scarce law enforcement resources in chasing ‘casual’ pot users. Obama has promised he won’t use federal forces to fight medical marijuana in states that have allowed it. To me, the question is whether this ‘benign neglect’ will extend to ‘recreational’ pot, to really give it a fair trial.

Pot has gotten a lot more expensive and a lot stronger in the last 30 years. This is a direct result of laws and enforcement against it. If it was legalized, we’d see people growing it for themselves (the stuff is VERY easy to grow! It’s not called ‘weed’ for nothing!) and I suspect it would get weaker and cheaper, like it was in the ’60s and ’70s. I think that alone would be a good result, worth legalizing it. Pot is the biggest ‘cash crop’ in California, a state with a huge agricultural base, as it is in the US as a whole. Legalizing it would deal a severe blow to organized crime, just as ending Prohibition did. Legalizing pot across the US would almost have a better effect on Mexico than on the US!