Honestly, if marijuana was legalized it would do some definite good for our society.
1. People would be much more educated about the drug because we could actually talk about it in an open environment. People could be given information and make an informed choice about whether or not to use the drug and under what circumstances they should use it.
2. Violent crime would drop. My dad is an attorney and he tells me that 90% of the domestic abuse cases he deals with are triggered by alcohol. In comparison, marijuana causes people to be much less impulsive and violent. People wouldn't exactly be getting into fights in marijuana bars if you know what I mean. I think the general atmosphere of our society would be much calmer as well since weed relaxes people and often helps them cope with their day to day stresses.
3. More money for the government. Even if the government imposed major taxes on marijuana, it would still be cheaper for everyone, and the government would gain revenue which it is losing once it enters the black market.
4. Marijuana users would not as quickly move on to hardcore drugs because smoking marijuana would be a socially acceptable behavior and not one that people have to do in secret. People don't call alcohol a gateway drug, but I guarantee if it was illegal people would.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
