Whatever its negatives may be, marijuana is demonstrably magnitudes less dangerous and damaging to society than, say, alcohol. Alcohol (the worst drug on the face of the earth) causes more violent crime, domestic abuse, health problems, vehicular homicides, etc., etc., than all illegal drugs combined.
Thus, the Prohibitionist mind, to be consistent, would have to advocate that alcohol be banned as well. Anything less is abject hypocrisy.
And yet society tolerates alcohol. Why? Because we are supposed to be a Free People, that's why, and we accept such evils rather than embrace overtly unjust alternatives.
As we all know, alcohol Prohibition was tried (thanks primarily to women getting the vote, IMHO) and it failed dismally for a myriad of logical reasons. And for the same reasons, the War on Drugs is an utter failure.
No amount of hand-wringing will ever change the fact that Prohibition is Tyrannical, having been used to justify blatant violations of Fourth Amendment rights, among others. And it necessarily requires Big Government in order to succeed in its deterrent goals. Practically speaking, contraband law cannot be enforced without trampling Natural Rights.
Of course drug use causes problems in society! That is a logical corollary of the big, scary, challenging concept known as Freedom. Education, not incarceration, is the only just way to mitigate such ills.
In America, authoritarian solutions to society's problems are not legitimate. When someone violates another's rights via the use of force or fraud, or demonstrates palpable negligence, then and only then has a crime been committed, and then and only then should such a person be subject to imprisonment.
Contraband law invariably leads to no-knock warrants, asset forfeiture, unjust imprisonment, black markets, involvement of organized crime, expansive and intrusive government, and general disdain for the rule of law. That's why almost everybody ended up being a criminal during alcohol Prohibition. Sound familiar?
Some among us apparently think that possessing the wrong plant, medicine, or recreational chemical should make criminals out of otherwise peaceable American citizens. This is nanny-state mentality at it worst, and such un-American attitudes are obviously not limited to Michael Bloomberg and his ilk.
Sometimes it seems to me like the classical Left and Right simply disagree over whose version of Tyranny should be imposed!
No thanks! I'll take Freedom instead, warts and all...
Very well said.