Marijuana will never be legal in the United States with the way our current government works. It's simply too damn profitable to keep it illegal. Too many lobbyists from competing industries, and without them our men in power wouldn't have such deep pockets.
For one thing, the pharmaceutical industry could never live with marijuana being legalized. After all, it's a natural plant that can't be patented, and that is exactly why they are against it. Marijuana has over 200 medical uses, and if the US government actually allowed more testing in its medical use more could possibly be found. Slightly modified THC such as Marinol is perfectly legal as a drug because it's changed just enough to be issued a patent. Even "anti-drug" organizations support openly support marinol - I mean how can it be wrong if it's FDA approved? After all it's not like Heroin and Meth were originally meant as medicine...
The Tobacco and Alcohol industries both would face giant losses with a new legal competitor in their market, if they didn't tap into it. Just look at some sponsors of big anti-drug organizations and they'll be at the top of the list. Cigarettes kill 400,000 Americans a year and alcohol kills 100,000... both because politicians make a **** load of cash through both industries.
Dealers and growers of marijuana themselves would hate for it to be legalized. They would never be able to compete with large corporations and marijuana's prices would plummet, leaving the drug trade industry crippled. Really the biggest blow to organized crime the world could ever do would be to legalize marijuana and drugs, and of course prostition, but that's a different matter.
The paper industry while one you might not have considered also factors in this. Industrial hemp that can't get you high has many uses like paper, fabric, and even fuel (Ford himself grew hemp). What a wonderful plant, right? For some reason though it's illegal to grow in the good ol' US of A, yet it's perfectly fine to buy from other countries where (some) reason is included in the law making process.
The prison business is booming and could never be better. We've got the highest prison population of the entire world, and our leaders are damn proud of it. Of that, in 2000 22% was for drug charges, a number that has without a doubt increased since the last census. Infact, the number of prisoners for violent crimes has decreased since our prison population grew dramatically, wonder why? The US has hundreds of privately owned prisons, guess who's sitting behind those bars, and guess who's paying for them.
Finally, "drug" (or more accurately marijuana) tests are a big business these days. Everyone from your employer to your mom is helping these companies cash in. "Drug" tests are inaccurate simply because most hard drugs like heroin will be out of your system in a few days, while marijuana is the one that stays. Basically, it's alright to do Heroin, but god forbid you smoke weed. Rapists and murderers are allowed to take out things like school loans while a convicted marijuana user can't... what kind of message is that?
It's just politics. No politician who has a good chance of being elected will support marijuana. The masses have been brainwashed one way or another since marijuana was made illegal in 1920. First, it was used as anti mexican propaganda. Nowadays the idea is marketed by calling marijuana a "drug" that has been made stronger since all the hippies used it. Whatever it is, it's brainwashing and was rooted in racism. Nixon himself said "every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana are Jewish".
Thats basically all from me for now on the matter. It's late and I'm tired as hell so there may be a few errors. I can source everything here if needed. Maybe one day we'll see justice, but for now we got to make the best of things and protect our rights as citizens. They can try to take them away, but we've just got to keep on fighting :yes:
