The fact that we're still calling for this action - removing Schedule I primarily - for a substance that is common as tobacco, maybe even more so, utterly says all you need know about this country in 2015.
For all the ballyhoo about freedom and liberty in this country, we remain one of the most backward, repressed, and downright stupid populations of any so-called industrial or developed country.
A significant amount of this repression is self-induced - we'd rather hang on to outdated mores and attitudes about real freedom issues such as gender, race, choice of partner, choice of self-determination for health (particularly among women), then to accept even a shred of forward thinking. I suppose accepting progress is counter to many American's nonsensical beliefs about evolution.
Legalize it already. How much pointless repression of this substance and the people who choose (there's that word again) to use it will it take to finally realize to that you have imprisoned a substantial percentage of your population thereby rendering them unable to contribute to society (or the GDP) in a meaningful manner? How much of an underground economy, complete with violent crime, will you tolerate?
American exceptionalism: We can hook you on a dozen legal poison drugs, you can drink yourselves into a pickle jar, you can smoke yourselves into the grave; you can do all these things except smoke pot. Utter nonsense.
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