Any time you change a law there are most likely going to people who get out of jail because of it. That's a ridiculous reason to not change something. You think all those people are happier in jail? And what about the thousands of weed shops that would open up because of the legalization? And all the new crops that would need to be tended in the US (a lot of that happens in Mexico and Canada these days). And of course taxing it all. All that has got to outweigh the burden of a few thousand additional people in the workforce.

Hey I found another link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_issues_and_the_effects_of_cannabis#Addiction_potential

"Research has shown that the overall addiction potential for cannabis to be much less than heroin, cocaine, tobacco and alcohol."

Also, marijuana is no walk in the park to grow. And people are lazy. You don't see a hell of a lot of people growing their own tobacco - which happens to be much more addictive.

1. Weed is not physiologically addictive, as opposed to say..tobacco

2. You can't OD on weed like you can with alcohol - you have to eat like four pounds of it or something.

3. It has little to no long term negative effects (decreases in short term memory + attention span for people smoking once a day for like 30 years)

4. Although Obama recently dismissed the idea, weed would be good for the economy - You tax it, people buy it, the government makes bank.

5. Weed helps you think in new ways. What's wrong with that?

6. Mexico is imploding right now because of drug cartels whose main cash crop is weed.

One of the best arguments I've heard made is that weed is no worse than alcohol or tobacco. No matter what else, if that's true, then there is no reason for weed not to also be legal.

Sure people can become psychologically addicted to weed, but they can get addicted to alcohol, cigarettes, gambling just as easily. All of which are already legal.

"weed is not the most inspirational type of drug, all it does is relax your brain so you stop thinking at all"

Have you ever smoked weed? A lot of the arguments I'm seeing on here tend to revolve around the equation weed = crack. Weed does not equal crack, no matter how much the bullshit anti-weed propagandists wish it were so. I've smoked a ton of weed and it blows me away every time. I get amazing ideas, have awesome realizations about myself and people around me, and they still seem awesome later on..even when I'm not high.

"....(cause i know way more stupid people who do than smart people)"

Maybe that's because you just know mostly stupid people in general. Could be a biased sample.

Bill Maher, Mayor Bloomberg, Richard Feynman (Nobel Prize winning physicist), Carl Sagan (Cosmos), Friedrich Nietzsche, guess what? All potheads.