We want to hear YOUR opinions on how our country should control marijuana.

Send them in to us at marijuanadiscussion@gmail.com and we'll put them up here
on our homepage for the whole world to see.

Why is Marijuana Law Reform a Big Deal?

You may have wondered about this before. Why do organizations like ours work so hard for the establishment of a legal and regulated marijuana supply? What's wrong with leaving marijuana prohibited, is there any harm caused by the prohibition at all?

The problem with keeping marijuana prohibited stems from the prohibition's inability to eliminate the demand for marijuana. While the prohibition has done a wonderful job at removing the legal supply of marijuana, it has proven to be completely incapable of removing, or even reducing, its demand. This creates major problems both for individuals and for our society as a whole.

If the prohibition were able to eliminate demand for marijuana we'd probably all agree that there really wouldn't be a problem. No demand, no supply, no drug dealers, cartels, kids getting high, murders, tortures or corruption. Marijuana might still be seen to be unfairly demonized by society but at least nobody would be getting hurt.

But it can't. The federal marijuana prohibition does not have the ability to remove the demand for marijuana from our society. The prohibition effectively started in 1937 with the introduction of the Marijuana Tax Act and has been in place now for a good seventy years. After seventy years of prohibition we currently have 15 million regular marijuana users, and a further 100 million people (a third of our country) acknowledge that they obtained and consumed marijuana at some time during the prohibition. The prohibition does NOT reduce demand for marijuana.

After the failure of the alcohol and marijuana prohibitions, it's now apparent that removing the legal supply of a product which enjoys massive, unrelenting demand does not make the demand go away. Instead, it simply diverts the demand to illegal sources. The consequences of this have proven to be far more devastating than the potential for harm that's contained in marijuana itself.

The major suppliers of illegal marijuana to this country are the Mexican drug cartels. They are without question the Al Capone's of the marijuana prohibition. It's commonly believed that the cartels make in the order of $10 billion a year from selling illegal drugs into the U.S., and the ONDCP estimates that two thirds of this income is derived solely from the sale of marijuana. In order to protect these profits, the cartels brutally murdered more than 6,000 people last year, and have killed a further 2,900 so far this year. Every single day the cartels murder an average of 17 people as a result of our marijuana prohibition.

This loss of life is the single greatest harm caused by the prohibition and, although there are many other urgent reasons for ending the prohibition, this needless slaughter is the thing we all, smokers and nonsmokers alike, must come together to end. Only the establishment of a legal marijuana supply in the United States, with after-tax prices set too low for drug dealers to match, can eliminate the cartel's profits and end the murders being committed to protect them. Tell your legislators that your vote depends on them joining the fight to end the prohibition!