If you look at the facts, most drug users started out with alcohol. The gateway theory has no real proof other than if you drink you could move on the harder drugs.

Legalize it. There's not one reason not to!

But it we did that, if we legalized drugs, we could end up depriving the enforcement agencies pf the opportunity to earn lots of money, doing futile busywork.

If you legalized opium and could grow it here locally, for even half of the money we send to the Taliban every year, that would deprive the Taliban of much needed revenue, while filling the State coffers.

That will NEVER do.

Zero fatalities, humongous tax-revenue potential, and not to mention hundreds of ways to use hemp for products. Seed oil can be a fuel source. What's not to love?

Put an "all-natural" label on it and you're good to go!

The legalization of Marijuana would take money out of the Mexican Drug Lords pockets and put money back into our economy, the substance Itself is actually better then alcohol and tobacco, both of those industries can not say their product has never killed a soul, to top it off, you can not OD on pot, it's practically impossible. So let's legalize it, Tax it, and begin generating a revenue off of it and allocate 8 billion a year for the war on drugs to attack more lethal drug epidemics such as Meth or Ecstasy.

This argument is so tiresome and all the points have been made.
What it comes down to is someone making a profit from withholding a choice from me. That is not the government that was founded in this country nor should it be the government today.
Legalization will happen eventually. These people who are in cahoots with those who make a profit from keeping it from the public will keep screaming and kicking the whole way.

The most dangerous attribute of marijuana is the US criminal justice system.

I hope you show this on CNN Anderson, Congressman Cohen proves an amazing point. Why has a drug that has never killed a single person illegal when alcohol and tobacco kill more people than any illegal drug ever has? O yea, because they have huge lobby groups with lots of money.

The war-on-some-drugs turns out to be war-on-the-safest drug.

Benefits outweigh the negatives and its better off away from a black market and regulated. So what its more potent today, it just means you don't smoke as much and its healthier now than it has ever been before. In great words of peter tosh... legalize it!

Mike D, the gateway affect if any is because if MJ being illegal. You buy MJ from a dealer, the dealer sells MJ to make money, most dealers will source out to harder drugs which make them more money. So when you buy MJ, the dealer may give you a free sample, then you may become addicted or want more. This is how the so called "gateway" theory is formed. If legalized this "gateway" theory will become no more. Alcohol is in no way connected with this at all, as its legal.

If anything the "gateway" effect occurs because an individual smokes marijuana and realizes there is nothing wrong with it, that they have been lied to by their government. It is an eye opening experience. If they experiment with other drugs it is only because they want to find out what else they have been lied to about (or they just really like gettig high and have no ambition in life). The fact of the matter is that our judicial system makes too much money in possesion/use fines, which goes to the state to pay our politician's salaries, that no one wants to be the person to kill the golden goose (even though legalizing it and taxing it would make more money and more sense).

boy when you take there slogans away they dont have much of a position. hmm shame all the money we have wasted fighting canabis could have done alot of good things with that money .its time end this shame

Please stop the prohibition of the Cannabis plant. Stop the lies and the continuing propaganda about Cannabis being harmful. The war on this incredibly useful plant is really just a war on the American citizens. The government has been/is at war with its citizens, carried out through the fear of the "war on drugs" The prohibition of the Cannabis plant is very profitable for certain prohibitionists, so they must maintain their agenda, even as the lies are being exposed. The word "tyranny" comes to mind. Government Tyranny! Wake up people! If you have knowledge/experience with Cannabis, it's so easy to see through the prohibitionists' lies and agendas. So why should we put our faith and trust in the other things the government is doing that we haven't any personal experience with. Like where did all that bailout money go...and come on, Bin Laden is hiding out in a cave...and the recent finding of "thermite" at the world trade center...yea right, like the jet fuel caused those buildings to come down, especially the third building that collapsed without even being struck by a plane. We all need to pay attention to the propaganda of fear which is being thrown at us. Don't just rely on these corporate wall street TV news shows for your information. Alternative media, reading and research on your own will help. Time to delve between the lines; sometimes the truth is very hard to find.

I agree with John and MIke, it should be legalized. All prohibition does is create powerful gangsters like Al Capone who before were just petty thugs and at the same time takes all the power of regulating it out of the governments hands. I never had a problem finding weed when I was younger but couldn't get alcohol, why do you think that is? Could it be because dealers don't card?

Legalize and tax it. Why has this not been done yet?

We've wasted billions on the drug war and it has hurt this country tremendously since its inception. We have more prisoners than any other country in the world because of the drug war. It undermines the Constitutional rights of Americans. And in some cases, it has made the problem much worse. Now we have horrible drugs like crystal-meth. Prohibition does not work nor does imprisoning non-violent drug offenders. I work in the Security industry on the tech side, I talk to prison officials all the time, they say to hell with this old failed approach.. We need to face the facts and stop letting out child molesters and killers because we busted some guy with a pound or two of weed and we need the space in our over-crowded prison. Wake up!

Straight from the horses mouth, marijuana has killed 0 people, ever.

And additionally, as we know if everyone who smoked marijuana started doing harder drugs America would have an even worse drug problem on their hands.

One step closer!

With politicians not buying the Feds' BS anymore, and instead being well informed and relying on those annoying "facts" and "science", whatever are these prohibitionist jerks going to do?

its simply sad !! i think people using the pot will think of some crazy IDEA to convince them to legalize it .

Re-legalizing marijuana cripple the drug cartels, and bring a whole new industry to the U.S.

It is only because of cannabis prohibition that there is any "gateway drug" effect to speak of. As this country saw in the nineteen-twenties and thirties, to legally ban anything is to give a monopoly on selling it and trafficking it to those whom are inherently criminal. So because cannabis is just as illegal as heroine and cocaine it is most convenient and profitable for criminals to traffic and sell them all side by side. Thus increasing the chances for a recreational (or medicinal) cannabis user to become addicted to harder drugs whether they were forced to buy the harder drug by the dealer, consumed the harder drug in tainted cannabis, or considered using a harder drug when the cannabis supply chain was disrupted by law enforcement activity.

The sooner we can get milk off the street, the sooner our children will be safe. This trillion dollar joke needs to stop.

this is awesome. who is the other guy in the video that is educating the FBI director?

Why is weed a gateway drug?

Because once you try it a couple of times and realise it doesn't destroy your life and leave you a hopeless addict like all your drug-ed classes said. Of course you logically wonder what else you were lied to about.

It's simple. No victim, no crime. Legalise it now!

Why Not Legalize marijuana?

-Set Age Limit

-Tax and Regulate it

-Profit

The State of Califorina alone can gross 1.3 billion dollars a year off marijuana as a cash crop. Imagine all that money going to programs like education and Heatlh Care.

John R : "Legalize it. There’s not one reason not to!"

But legalizing it would cut into the profits of our gigantic prison and pharma industries!!

Also, the reason marijuana smokers may get into harder and more dangerous drugs is because marijuana's illegality puts it in the hands of people who may also carry heroin, amphetamines, or other dangerous substances. It's a lot easier to get them that way, regardless of whether the individual started out interested in them.

Why is Robert Mullen even talking about marijuana? Isn't that was the DEA is for? It doesn't seem to matter which agency talks about it when they are pressed to back their opinion up with fact they all buckle the same. The only reasons they seem to be able to give us as to why marijuana is illegal is because they "feel" marijuana use leads to other drugs, a theory that has been proven completely backwards over and over again.

"The World Health Organization's investigation into the gateway effect of marijuana stated emphatically that the theory that marijuana use by adolescents leads to heroin use is the least likely of all hypotheses."
Source:
Hall, W., Room, R. & Bondy, S., WHO Project on Health Implications of Cannabis Use: A Comparative Appraisal of the Health and Psychological Consequences of Alcohol, Cannabis, Nicotine and Opiate Use, August 28, 1995 (Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, March 1998).

The World Health Organization noted the effects of prohibition in its March 1998 study, when it stated that "exposure to other drugs when purchasing cannabis on the black market, increases the opportunity to use other illicit drugs."
Source:
Hall, W., Room, R. & Bondy, S., WHO Project on Health Implications of Cannabis Use: A Comparative Appraisal of the Health and Psychological Consequences of Alcohol, Cannabis, Nicotine and Opiate Use, August 28, 1995 (Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, March 1998).

"There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs."
Source:
Janet E. Joy, Stanley J. Watson, Jr., and John A Benson, Jr., "Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base," Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Research, Institute of Medicine (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1999).

Riding a bike leads to driving a car. Drinking coffee leads to drinking lattes. There is no scientific evidence to support the claim that using marijuana leads to using harder drugs. People will typically try something "mild" before they try something more "extreme". It's just a scary "theory" created by our government to scare people.

[...] Video: FBI defends marijuana laws FBI director Robert Mueller says marijuana should not be legalized while admitting no adult has been killed by the [...] [...]