State and local governments, Hightower and Frazer report, ??have begun walking step by step away from the weed war. ? Since 1996, 13 states from Rhode Island to Alaska have passed laws to allow growing and distribution of doctor-prescribed marijuana for medical purposes. What's more, pot possession is no longer criminalized in a dozen states: Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, and Oregon.
The drive now is for outright legalization of pot, the authors say. This would enable officials to take the exorbitant profit and violence out of illicit black-market weed by legalizing it and turning it into a revenue-producer that would rake in tax dollars.
Instead, the Office of National Drug Control Policy says, Americans spend $9 billion a year buying pot from Mexico; $10 billion on pot from Canada, and $39 billion on home-grown pot, now America's Numero Uno cash crop--- ??topping the value of corn and wheat combined. ? By one estimate, legalization would produce annual tax revenues of $6.2 billion. In Portugal, which legalized all drugs in 2001, hard drug use has showed a stunning decline while the numbers of people getting detox aid has soared, Time magazine reported last April 26th. By contrast, USA has the highest rates of drug use in the world.
As Rep. Barney Frank has said, ??I now think it's time for the politicians to catch up to the public. The notion that you lock people up for smoking marijuana is pretty silly. ?
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