The simple fact that convinces me we should not punish the weed-heads out there is this: you cannot force the US populace to stop doing something with legislation and punishment, if they really, REALLY want to do it, and a large percentage of the populace is doing. The result of attempting to legislate against something like this is you criminalize their behavior and have to punish a huge number of Americans with all the costs, financial and other, involved.

I think a very large minority of Americans either have used weed, or do use it regularly. Even if it is only 5% who use it regularly, they continue to use it regularly in spite of it being illegal iwth consequences. For arguments sake let's say it is only 2% - that is six million Americans you have turned into criminals who you now have to punish if you catch them.

The reason that legislating against other kinds of behavior workwell - like theft, murder, rape, robbery, etc - is that the vast majority of us don't want to do those things and consider them reprehensible. They are an integral part of our social contract. I think the number of people using weed vastly outnumbers all other criminals combined, so we have to ask - is it worth all the resources we commit to the war on drugs such as weed?

I don't put hard drugs into the same category as weed. I think we're losing the war on weed, and will always lose it, we'll just keep pissing money away and millions, if not tens of millions of Americans, will continue to use it and take the risks involved.