In the interview, Mr. Holder said he was sending an additional 100 agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to the southern border to crack down on the so-called straw gun purchases — in which one person submits to the federal background checks to obtain guns for someone else — that fuel much of the southbound smuggling. And with marijuana sales central to the drug trade, Mr. Holder said he was exploring ways to lower the minimum amount required for the federal prosecution of possession cases.

http://www.nytimes.com/...

The above, along with Obama's recent downplaying of marijuana activism, is an outrageous example of the disconnect that still exists, even with all of our efforts, between Washington, D.C. and the people of the United States.

According to the government's own surveys on issues relating to drug use, 56.7% of people between the age of 18 and 28 have tried marijuana. This is an important number to keep in mind for multiple reasons. Arrests and prosecutions on this segment of society for an activity such as marijuana smoking can have disastrous consequences. You can lose your federal financial aid, go to jail, pay huge fines, and lose your chances of being a taxpaying member of society in a well-paying professional job. Of course, none of these penalties apply for the possession of a legal drug that kills you by destroying your liver, causes you to lose coordination, pass out and die, or could possibly lead to drunk driving deaths.

This is with the status quo... but what AG Holder is proposing goes far beyond that. Felony possession cases waste a notoriously large amount of money and time spent prosecuting someone who simply had in his possession a plant he planned to smoke for personal use. Because felony prosecutions are more often associated with jail time, that will be 30,000 dollars a year spent to house inmates only in jail because they sought to do what Barack Obama, Michael Phelps, Carl Sagan, Francis Crick, and many other names of similar prestige did in their own free time. To make matters worse, though, is that a felony prosecution case results in the loss of your right to vote in many of the states where marijuana is not decriminalized, such as my home state of Louisiana. This is unacceptable to my sensibilities, and I hope it is unacceptable to yours as well.

When we talk about this policy being so destructive to the well-being of our society, we try to look at this issue from many different angles. One very important thing to realize is the huge amount of revenue that would be generated through the legalization of marijuana.

According to The Economic Costs of Drug Abuse in the United States, Office of National Drug Control Policy (Dec 2004), Table C-3, It would appear that we spend 40 billion to incarcerate drug abusers every year. Furthermore, we lose 36 billion dollars every year in "other costs," taken from Table C-4 in the same report. A large portion of this is from marijuana related crimes, like growing, dealing, and possessing marijuana. That's 76 billion dollars in costs.

Imagine what we could do with a reduction of 76 billion dollars in cost to the government? To those of you on the fence about legalization, what is your pet issue? What can 76 billion dollars do for that issue? Think about 76 billion dollars spent in health care, or in child development, or in raising the salary of school teachers, or in scientific research... the possibilities are endless!

And all of this completely ignores the revenue that marijuana would generate

California NORML estimates that a legal market for marijuana could yield the state $1.5 - $2.5 billion. A basic $1 per joint excise tax would yield about $1 billion to the state, while the state would save over $150 million in enforcement costs for arrests, prosecutions and prison. Additional benefits would accrue from sales taxes and spinoff industries. Total retail sales of marijuana would be on the order of $3-$5 billion, with total economic impact of $8-$13 billion including spinoff industries such as coffeehouses, tourism, and industrial hemp.

This is just from California alone.

I believe that if we do decide to legalize marijuana, we will see many benefits:

1 - It will instantly provide a multibillion dollar industry to the united states.

The state that legalizes will experience a big boom in their economy in just a few days.

2 - Medical users could then smoke freely instead of taking pain medicines that are damaging to their health.

3 - Non-medical users that smoke will face less liver-toxicity if they take when they have a headache than eating tylenol.

4 - 30,000 dollars a year is spent to keep a prisoner in prison. More if it is in a federal penetentiary, where several marijuana growers are spending hard time. Legalizing not only will provide an instant gain in the money that it normally costs to keep these people in prison, but will turn them into taxpaying members of society, or hell, maybe even entrepreneurs.

5 - It will reduce many billions of dollars that we spend fighting corruption in the United States caused by the mexican drug cartels, and the drug cartels themselves.

6 - It will reduce the national security concerns of the above as well.

7 - Hemp will be a big industry. Hemp will bring in much more money than other paper sources.

8 - Marijuana is good for the environment. It produces a lot of oxygen, and it is much more quickly grown than pine forests, which face heavy deforestation every year. It is a very renewable source of paper and tough fiber.

9 - It will make the people feel good about their government not intruding on their lives unjustly.

10 - Imagine the sort of coffeeshops, smoke bars, paraphernalia, etc... the peripheral market for marijuana will be amazing.

11 - It will eliminate 60% of the violent mexican drug cartel's funding directly. The other 40%, cocaine, will be significantly reduced due to the virtual death of the black market centering around marijuana.

12 - It will draw people away from alcohol and cigarettes, which are much more dangerous and deadly.

13 - Marijuana is actually carcino-suppressive, cuts your chances of getting lung cancer in half, and is neuro-protective, meaning that people who do drink on marijuana will possibly see less brain damage. Furthermore, as in point 12, who would drink all day when you could smoke weed all day? We may see less people drink alcohol as a result.

14 - It costs 500 dollars every time we arrest someone for Marijuana. That does not take into account all of the maintainence programs, drug rehab programs that we pay for when they are on probation, drug testing, and constant purchasing of equipment meant to find marijuana growers. This will save billions of dollars in legalization.

There is no doubt that the public perception on this issue is changing, and changing fast. People want to see better drug laws, especially when it comes to marijuana. It is no longer a complete political liability to speak about marijuana like we are doing right now. Just a few days ago, I was watching MSNBC at 1:00 when they reported on a drug bust of 5000 pounds of high quality marijuana. A long time ago, you'd simply hear a congratulations to the police, some quip about how the streets are safer, and they'd move to the next issue. Instead, Contessa Brewer's first comment was about how much revenue could be raised if all of that was taxed.

So what can you do about the situation? Well, anything! Just talk to people about your feelings on the issue, and hell, even if you are against it, engage in open debate and open discussion. This is something that our nation absolutely needs to talk about. Most of all, though, do what you can to make it clear to the powers that be that we will no tolerate a backstep in the war on drugs in the form of increased possession prosecutions.

"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this."

Albert Einstein, "My First Impression of the U.S.A.", 1921

Update: Rec list! Thank you guys so much for caring about this issue. Its about time we take stronger stands on marijuana legislation and prosecution.

Remember what Gandhi said,

"first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

They are finally fighting us.

Update: Thank Nate Silver at 538 for taking this issue up today as well. In his diary, he posts a graph showing a breakdown of marijuana use by age. For the full analysis, go check out his post here:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/...

Here's an excerpt: