heroin was once legal too (its a pain killer). Extacy was as well. Many drugs that are illegal now were up until very recently legal.
your point being?
The point was well made, no?
Alcohol is legal still, has the highest record of deaths related to it's use bar none. More highway and accidental deaths due to it's use, more families ruined and on and on.
Add tobacco to the above as well for it's innumerable cancer deaths.
The death rate due to pot use, even long term users, is practically nil. It was made illegal not for concern of the public health, but because it was in competition with DuPont's new invention NYLON. Otherwise they would have just taxed it like liquor or tobacco.
Maybe you'd be surprized that the Rockefeller & Roosevelt/Delano fortunes were built up from their opium trading with the middle and far east? China clippers ring a bell?
Am I cheering for decriminalization of pot. Of course. Am I recommending it's use - not on your life, nor tobacco or alcohol. They all are detrimental to one's health.
But incarcerating adults who do inhale, and the costs related to it, are ludicrous in light of the treatment alcohol & tobacco lobbies secured for themselves, cuz you know politicians have been highly involved in the business of both - like Al Gore's family tobacco farms.
If you're for unlimited Govt and maximum regulation of specific under-lobbied industries and loss of individual liberty for a victimless crime, you are certainly welcome to your own opinion. I just think it reaks of politics and little else as compared to A & T.