With tobacco being slowly outlawed, there is probably no chance of that happening. I'm not sure the government is capable of regulating marijuana as it wants.
"I'm not sure the government is capable of regulating marijuana as it wants."
They sure as heck aren't regulating it now. They have zero control over it. All they are accomplishing now is seizing a couple of thousand tons a year and locking lots of people up at considerable expense to us taxpayers. Even seizing all they seize the last government estimate was that between 12,000 and 25,000 metric tons of marijuana were available on the market in 2002 as opposed to 10,000 to 24,000 that was on the market in the U.S. 2001. They're just throwing money away trying to stop this massive industry. Any control over it through regulation would be a lot more control than they have now.
"With tobacco being slowly outlawed, there is probably no chance of that happening."
I think it will happen within twenty years, maybe a little sooner, or it might take a little longer (but not much). People are eventually going to get tired of blowing all the money fighting a losing battle that causes more problems than it solves. Moreover, the older folks who are most terrified of pot are dying off and being replaced by people who have more likely than not at least tried the stuff. Most American adults under 55 have smoked marijuana. According to government surveys only something like 7% of those 65 and older have tried pot (at least by the last survey in 2003, the percentage should be a little higher now.) The percentage who have smoked it drops off sharply as people age past around 55.
Along with a growing frustration over our marijuana laws in the future, what we are going to see is that more of the senior politicians, judges, and the older class of citizens who tend to out vote younger people by a substantial margin will be people likely to have smoked pot before themselves and not as likely to have unrealistic overblown notions about how terrible the stuff is. As it is the percentage of Americans who think marijuana should be regulated and controlled similar to the way alcohol is controlled has grown to somewhere between one third and a little over 40%, depending on which surveys you look at. Regardless of which surveys you look at, if you look at results from previous years it is clear that support for treating marijuana similar to the way we treat alcohol is growing. I believe that trend will continue. My guess is that in the future politicians will not be so afraid to discuss changing the marijuana laws. Voters, especially the older set that actually vote, will be far less likely to penalize politicians that want practical workable marijuana laws. It's only a matter of time before people say enough is enough and change the laws.