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are you concerned about the US economy? How would millions more jobs sound? What about your tax money being put to good use? About $10 billion is spent on drug law enforcement each year, framing responisble marijuana users, 90% for possesion, instead of catching rapists, serial killers, and other many other dangerous criminals. California saved $1 billion from 1976 to 1985 just by decriminalizing personal possesion of 1 ounce of marijuana. Marijuana arrests have more than doubled since 1991, while adult use of the drug has remained stable. During this same period, the number of arrests for cocaine and heroin fell by approximately 33 percent.

According to editors of the prestigious Lancet British medical journal: "The smoking of cannabis, even long-term, is not harmful to health. ... It would be reasonable to judge cannabis as less of a threat ... than alcohol or tobacco."
REFERENCE: Deglamorising Cannabis. 1995. The Lancet 346: 1241. Editorial. November 14, 1998. The Lancet.

The National Academy of Sciences further found, "There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs."
REFERENCE: National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine (IOM). 1999. Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base. National Academy Press: Washington, DC, 6.

Under federal law, possessing a single marijuana cigarette or less is punishable by up to one year in prison and a $10,000 fine, the same penalty as possession of small amounts of heroin, cocaine or crack.
REFERENCE: J. Morgan and L. Zimmer. 1997. Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts: A Review of the Scientific Evidence. The Lindesmith Center: New York, 42.

Decriminalization does not lead to greater marijuana use.

Government studies conclude that marijuana decriminalization has had virtually no effect on either marijuana use or beliefs and related attitudes about marijuana among American young people in those states that have enacted such a policy.

There is no evidence that marijuana decriminalization affects either the choice or frequency of use of drugs, either legal (such as alcohol) or illegal (such as marijuana and cocaine).

States and regions that have maintained the strictest criminal penalties for marijuana possession have experienced the largest proportionate increase in use.