Marijuana laws should be set at the state, not federal, level, Reps. Ron Paul and Barney Frank argued in a bill they introduced Thursday.

The goal of the bill, HR 2306, is not to legalize marijuana but to remove it from the list of federally controlled substances while allowing states to decide how they will regulate it.

"I do not advocate urging people to smoke marijuana. Neither do I urge them to drink alcoholic beverages or smoke tobacco," said Frank (D-Mass.). "But in none of these cases do I think prohibition enforced by criminal sanctions is good public policy.

"Criminally prosecuting adults for making the choice to smoke marijuana is a waste of law enforcement resources and an intrusion on personal freedom," he added.

Frank admitted in a conference call Thursday that he didn't think the bill had a chance of passing, but according to Reason's Hit & Run blog, the congressman was "particularly struck by the hypocrisy of public officials who will themselves talk about smoking marijuana, wink at it, and then make it criminal for other people," which leads to "a very discriminatory pattern of enforcement."

The bill appears doomed on arrival, according to the Associated Press, which reported that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith said his panel, which the proposed law is required to venture through, would not even consider it.

"Marijuana use and distribution is prohibited under federal law because it has a high potential for abuse and does not have an accepted medical use in the U.S.," said Smith, who like Paul is a Texas Republican. "The Food and Drug Administration has not approved smoked marijuana for any condition or disease."

Smith cited the theory that pot is a gateway drug, and then added the curious belief that legalizing weed would increase the coffers of drug lords.

"Decriminalizing marijuana will only lead to millions more Americans becoming addicted to drugs and greater profits for drug cartels who fund violence along the U.S.-Mexico border. Allowing states to determine their own marijuana policy flies in the face of Supreme Court precedent," Smith said.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy echoed some of Smith's fears and said decriminalizing pot was a nonstarter.

"Our concern with marijuana is not borne out of any culture war or drug war mentality, but out of what the science tells us about the drug’s effects. The facts are that marijuana potency has tripled in the past 20 years and teens are using the drug at earlier ages," the office said in a statement to The Times.

"The earlier a person begins to use drugs, the more likely they are to progress to more serious abuse and addiction -– reflecting the harmful, long-lasting effects drugs can have on the developing brain. Legalization remains a nonstarter in the Obama administration because research shows that marijuana use is associated with voluntary treatment admissions, fatal drugged driving accidents and emergency room admissions," the statement said.

I approve but it won't pass.

I'd also like to throw this on the pile of liberties we once gave up only to celebrate getting back.

But the whole point here is to simply discuss if you think legalizing pot is a good or bad idea. It's a straight forward question.

I think we should legalize marijuana… So potheads have nothing to talk about ever again. Grow up and do coke like an adult.
-Daniel Tosh

Right. An organization dedicated to the eradication of dope laws should clearly be relied upon as an objective source.

The only argument that matters is that the federal war on drugs has failed, and is a waste of money. Penalties are too steep based on the severity of the crime, and frankly most of them are unenforceable. On that point alone, repeal the damn things.

The rest is just bullshit wrapped around an excuse to want to smoke openly.

And the science, though still evolving, is clear: marijuana use is harmful. It is associated with dependence, respiratory and mental illness, poor motor performance, and cognitive impairment, among other negative effects

We know that over 120,000 people who showed up voluntarily at treatment facilities in 2007 reported marijuana as their primary...

Controls and prohibitions help to keep prices higher, and higher prices help keep use rates relatively low, since drug use, especially among young people, is known to be sensitive to price.

i dont have any beef with the legalization of pot, but there are few things more annoying then the "legalize it" crowd.

you know, the ones who pretty much live to smoke, and feel the need to educate me on the subject. i dont care. go the fuck away.

http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/news/speech10/030410_Chief.pdf

For those that don't know about Kerlikowski...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Kerlikowske

He's not a right wing zealot by any means, having been appointed under Clinton and now by Obama. It's an interesting read regardless of your position. He was my instructor during my senior year at Buffalo State College, and has a very forward thinking mindset. So PSP, this issue isn't so cut and dry the way you think.

Because prescription drugs are legal, they are easily accessible, often from a home medicine cabinet.

Specifically about marijuana, he said, "It's a dangerous drug..."

First, on the medical marijuana issue, I believe that the science should determine what a medicine is, not popular vote.

I recently met with officials from the Netherlands, they are closing down marijuana outlets – or “coffee shops” – because of the nuisance and crime risks associated with them. What used to be thousands of shops have now been reduced to a few hundred, and some cities are shutting them down completely.8

Though I sympathize with the current budget predicament – and acknowledge that we must find innovative solutions to get us on a path to financial stability – it is clear that the social costs of legalizing marijuana would outweigh any possible tax that could be levied. In the United States, illegal drugs already cost $180 billion a year in health care, lost productivity, crime, and other expenditures.23 That number would only increase under legalization because of increased use.

Dissect the speech all you want. There are valid points and others besides him that have serious concerns about what the outcome of legalized mj would be. I think the biggest misconception is that cartels and DTOs would be out of business. They would fight like hell to retain control of production or take over distribution centers in one way or another. The issue just isn't as simple as some people want to think.