Let me first get this out of the way: I have never, nor intend to smoke pot, marijuana, cigarettes, or any other substance that is smoked.

There is currently a big push among younger people to legalize drugs. While they may be right when they say that prohibition doesn’t work, and medical marijuana is useful, their latest argument that legalizing marijuana so you can tax it will save the economy. This is just downright silly. If you think that one product is going to save the economy, you’re insane.

Making marijuana legal would have some good effects: you can tax it, you spend less money on cops to enforce it, etc. While it would have a few positive affects, what would you do with those that have already been convicted with possession of illegal substances like marijuana? Would you just let them go? Hardened by prison, do you think it’s safe to just let them out of jail? How do you think they would feel towards law enforcement after they were released?

In a lot of ways it makes sense to legalize marijuana, but in a lot of ways it makes sense to keep prohibition active. I don’t support the use of narcotics, I think it’s a waste of time and money, but I’ll leave the decision on whether to legalize it or not up to those who have done more research on it.