Federal ban on marijuana may end?!

Congressional Bill Link

40th Anniversary of "War on Drugs" Conference Report

LEAP Failed Drug Policy .PDF

Bill being set for to end the federal ban on marijuana. Personally, I think this is a great idea for a few reasons:

#1 - Farmers will be able to grow hemp for production purposes. You can get more usable fiber for clothing, paper, etc out of a acre of hemp than you can out of multiple acres of tree's or production crops. This, and the fact that hemp is not as harmful to the soil - meaning less 'crop rotation' to deal with by leeching the soil.

#2 - People will be able to (on a state by state basis) decide if they want to legalize marijuana sales. Now some unfortunate souls will be stuck in puritanical brain dead areas (hopefully not Indiana) that will refuse to legalize it even though doing so will create revenue, lower prison and law enforcement costs.

#3 - Prison populations will go down DRAMATICALLY. We have the highest rate of incarceration of any country in the world - and of those over 50% are for drug related arrests - and about 75% of those drug related arrests are for simple marijuana charges. If the average prisoner costs $55,000.00 a year to house in prison and we have multiples of millions of prisoners... do some quick math and see what we spend on this ridiculous 'War on Drugs'

#4 - Mexican drug cartels, which are killing our citizens and law enforcement agents on our border make a hell of a lot of money off of simple old marijuana trafficking. So, we legalize it - there is no need to smuggle it anymore... they don't make the money, they look elsewhere for profits and we can narrow the scope of things we have to watch for. Marijuana is easy to grow, you can harvest multiple times a year, and it's an easy 'cash crop'... take away all that ease and simplicity and you make it harder for these drug cartels to get rich.

#5 - People in states without medical marijuana finally have some help in trying to convince their stubborn governors to let dispensaries open! 12 states allow it... are those 12 states the only people with chronic pain conditions? NO!! People in every state have chronic pain, glaucoma, etc... but only residents in 12 states get to enjoy the simple HEALTHY benefits of using marijuana as it has been used for thousands of years - as a medicinal aid!