At any rate, I personally believe that it all has to do with the interests of our government and/or powerful lobyists. The prohibition of alcohol was just to disasterous and the government probably doesn't believe that it has oppressed us enough to consider trying that one again. Eventually we could get to that point thanks to people like MADD and sobriety activists in general.
Marijuana however was much easier to outlaw, because at the time there wasn't as much use among the common person / resistance to it at the time. I think it's wholly obvious that Marijuana's fate was sealed by big corporations who had friends in the government that personaly stood to lose a hell of a lot of business when the new patent was granted for a great hemp processing machine just months before the illegalization.
I also wonder if furthermore it's too lucrative of a comodity to our government as illegal, as opposed to what they could get from legalizing then taxing it.
In my personal opinion the main reason why drugs and marijuana (I don't consider it the same as the common reference to "drugs" in the illicit sense) are outlawed and theres a whole big to do about it, is because governments use it for under the table arms sales. Drug trade is an extremely effective medium for this, it keeps a lot of money off the books and in general is an underground market all of its own, that would be incredibly hard to keep track of and regulate. I think one BIG concern of our government in the Vietnam War was the fear of losing our (unmentioned) poppy fields in Cambodia and Thailand.
"Let justice be done though the heavens fall." - Jim Garrison
"Ask not your horse, if ye should ride into battle" - myself
