Not to throw a wet blanket, but it sounds like some here obsess about marijuana. If you can't relax or enjoy things without it - you need to do some self-examination.
To be honest with you, I don't smoke marijuana very much any more. Once every three or four months if the mood suits me, and then usually I wonder why I bothered. It makes me timid, causes me to second guess myself, and robs me of my wits. I'm also very much against drunk (or high) driving, so if I smoke it, I'm stuck in one place. I don't particularly like the effects it has on me, so I usually turn it down.
Of course, there was a time when this wasn't the case, and I'm glad there was that time, as it gave me a much better insight into this stupid "War on Drugs" than your average non-drug-using American could ever hope to have. Forget marijuana... Ecstacy, Cocaine, Meth, LSD, Heroin... The war's completely hopeless across the board. The tactics chosen ruin lives and lead to more deaths than they could ever hope to save.
If the goal of a prison (for nonviolent criminals) is to rehabilitate the individual and help them turn their life around so they can be productive, tax paying Americans, then prison is the absolute worse place on earth to send a drug addict. For one thing, it's just a great way for them to increase their network of suppliers and clients, and on a more sinister tone, sending, for example, a heroin addict to prison for a few months to try and "teach them a lesson," is really nothing less than a death sentence. Assuming they can't find drugs in there (which is not true, anyway), once they get out their tolerance has dropped. They try using again with a dose close to what they were used to, and they die.
While I agree that cleaning up the streets from drugs is a noble cause, and one I'd be willing to help out doing, any one who thinks the current tactics are working is sticking their head in the sand. Unfortunately, the current tactics will remain the tactics until the laws are changed, and people don't usually like change.
It's funny... We spend so much money on trying and failing to eradicate the drug
supply, and then cut funding from so many school programs (sports, art, music, field trips) that reduce the
demand.
