*Marijuana*

I wanted to write my additional journal article about legalizing marijuana; it is a highly controversial topic that is being talked about in every establishment across the country.  I recently watched an AWESOME documentary about legalizing marijuana called "The Union: Business Behind Getting High" which talked about the actual process of legalizing marijuana and covered a ton of statistics that compare it to tobacco and alcohol, both of which are much worse than marijuana.  This is what I don't understand--lets be honest, a TON of people smoke marijuana, people from ALL walks of life.  We aren't talking about trashy drug addicts here, we are talking about business people, "normal" blue-collar working class people, students, teachers, politicians, celebrities, you name it--it is across the board.  So if everyone is doing it, and we have the research and statistics to prove that it isn't harmful, why won't the government just legalize it and regulate it?  Just yesterday I read an article in Time magazine about legalizing medicinal marijuana, and how this is going to push us in the direction of legalizing it for everyone, not just those who have a prescription.  If the government can regulate it, they can tax it to make money off of it; on top of this, think about how many less stupid marijuana arrests and convictions there would be.  Really? You're going to lock up some guy for having an ounce of weed in his car? Shouldn't you be out catching the killers and rapists? It makes no sense to me that so many arrests and convictions and tons of people that are in jail are because of possession of marijuana!  Where are our priorities??  Maybe this is all just ranting and raving but I can see the facts as plain as day, just as anyone else could see, and keeping marijuana illegal just makes absolutely no sense to me.  Thousands of people die every year because of drunk driving or from lung cancer related to tobacco addiction; people die from liver disease related to alcoholism.  And yet these substances are perfectly legal and we have the right, at a certain age, to indulge pretty much as much as we want, and the government profits.  Such a double standard.....