I just passed my 30th anniversary as a pot smoker 2 weeks ago, so I thought my experience might be relevant to your discussion. It has been mostly enjoyable but has its ups and downs.I don't notice much physical and mental impairment from it, as I have been able to do many things under the influence such as play basketball, hockey, soccer, guitar, go on 20km hikes in the Rockies, 50km bike rides, cross country skiing, pass university finals and go to a new job stoned for the first 6 weeks and still get a raise. Sure i can be better when straight , but none of that can I do for 5 minutes under alcohol influence. It can slow concentration and motivation, but also deepen it once you're into what you're doing. It can enhance enjoyment of constructive activities such as music or nature. It can impair maturity and memory, but negligibly compared to what I've seen with alcohol. Morning after effects include grogginess and irritibility, again, negligible compared to the pain of alcohol hangover. For this, I resent that alcohol is legal and pot is not. I also resent that often police want to crack down on smokers in the park but do little about theft. When I caught someone trying to steal my bike, the police were angry when I called them for bothering them with something as trivial as bike theft, though one of the thieves turned out to be a wanted pedophile. No wonder bike theft is epidemic. Also I've heard of pot growers doing more time than convicted pedophiles, a far greater infamnia. It can be psychologically addictive,many people use it daily, withdrawal includes sleeplessness, anxiousness, and irritibility, very much like tobacco withdrawal, but less intense. It stimulates appetite, but I doubt many have gotten fat from it. Does better quality make you smoke less? Yes, you need less to be satisfied and most smokers realize any more than that is a waste. It can relax you and help you sleep, but make you anxious if you have deeper problems; it depends on the person. I wouldn't trade it for tranquilizers. It can make you less talkative; I've had difficulties being sociable enough, though maybe I sometimes smoke in consolation for that. Gateway drug? I've experimented with stronger drugs, but normally avoid, feel no desire and am scared of them. Sometimes the law makes it happen that way; in Hawaii I was told that because of the crackdown on pot it had become cheaper and easier to do crystal meth instead. Long term effects? I seem to be in reasonable shape for my age and my financial statements still pass their audits. Still, I could be doing better, so its high time I quit. Legalize it Amsterdam style? Probably, I love going there, but I don't know... its not harmless. Still. no one should ever go to jail for it; having vices is part of human nature and there's a limit to how much the law should interfere with that. Education, regulation, moderation, and presenting alternatives are preferable. Some laws need to be re-prioritized. If countries like Colombia and Afghanistan were allowed to grow it, it might be a much lesser evil alternative to cocaine or heroin and give them a cash crop for some economic and political stability. A bigger problem I've seen is presciption dilaudids ending up on the street and being used in needles, creating new opiate addicts. Finally. a consequence of my habit is that I have never been able to afford a car and came to realize I don't really need one very often and neither do most people ( How can we help save the environment?).

Lets review your argument. Your premise is that smoking marijuana turns people who were not losers, into losers...as evidence you cite the opinions of a few people who's jobs happen to depend on putting people in cages for possessing plants.

Because the plant in question is illegal to grow, it attracts growers who don't care about following laws. Not nice people like the hardworking Americans working for Budweiser. Understandably, these gardeners do not make a positive impression on the organization tasked with putting them in cages and are often maligned by the DEA which has a much easier time seizing assets from growers than cocaine cartels.

Lets say you are right, growing marijuana turns a person into a loser. This begs the question, is it the gardening that does it? The actual smoking of the plant? or does being arrested on multiply felonies, robbed by competitors, and getting raped in prison have something to do with it?

Maybe we shouldn't try to answer these questions. That would require finding evidence to support our conclusion. Evidence that takes work to find. From reading your article it is clear that even writers free from the debilitating scourge of marijuana abuse find it difficult to back their arguments with even a shred of evidence. Its sufficient to just label a group of people losers without giving a single example of how they fail to live up to any standard save those put in place by an organization that profits from their arrest.

My advice is to find some drive and ambition. You will never get satisfaction out of life picking the lowest hanging fruit. Writing about how potheads are losers is about as difficult as finding your way out of a wet paper bag.

This "article" is just flame-bait; poorly written and without original content, it finishes with a flourish that acknowledges that its intention isn't to promote discourse. Like CNN and the other major networks, its intention is to create a controversy (minor in this case) and exploit it for fun and profit (fine, actually just profit). Prohibition should have ended long ago, but there are too many interests that its end would hurt (the prison industrial complex, federal law enforcement bureaucracies, etc.) However, you won't find the full story on CNN; if you want to know the truth, pick up some books and do some research. If things like this article are informing the opinions of the American people, it is of little wonder that our country is in such bad shape. Being a citizen is a responsibility, not just a right; act accordingly and don't listen to the liars and idiots.

Why not legalize being a loser? Since when is being a loser illegal? Aside from your title being snarky and incorrect, your investigation into the cost/benefit analysis of legalizing marijuana is incomplete at best.

I find it telling that you only spoke with law enforcement agents and prosecutors to inform your opinion. Perhaps some of the police officers you spoke to have actually advanced their careers by locking up these “loser” marijuana users. Since the inception of the war on drugs, the arrest rates for major felonies and violent crimes has plummeted and drug arrests have skyrocketed. Police are looking to boost their arrest rates and be promoted – and what is the fastest route to that goal? Certainly not a lengthy, difficult investigation into a rape or murder charge, but by reaching into pockets and cars and filling our jails with casual drug users.

The DEA agents you spoke to admit that the drug war is lost. The tax revenue that could be raised by legal marijuana sales and the saved costs of trial and incarceration of petty drug cases can be used in productive ways. Think about the drug treatment programs, job training and after-school programs that could be funded.

Sure, throw an anti-smoking campaign in there if you have a serious problem with the work ethic, lung capacity or delusional ways of pot smokers. You said “anti-smoking campaigns work for tobacco,” but tobacco is legal! Those ads are actually funded by the tobacco companies as a result of a federal judgment against them. If we legalize and tax marijuana, the government can regulate campaigns like that.

With all respect.. 9 people were killed on the metro system in DC. our troops are getting killed in Iraq, trouble in Iran, econics issues in our country, miltary issues, and for the last 4 hours your network found Mr. Jacksons demise more important than all of the other isues confronting our world Now? Why? I feel very sorry for this story line = but do you not feel that as a news information network that you should also report the information that should be important also?

Respectfully Submitted

Just be a capitalist. I don't want to spend money policing, arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating pot smokers. Please stop. Yes I have smoked pot. No I don't smoke pot and I don't care if you do. I don't want to pay for you to not smoke pot, snort cocaine or shoot heroine. I don't know am I the only one that things prohibition and the war on drugs have parallels? Does that mean there is a parallel between the mafia and current gang problems. Please don't tell me about anything dealing with the war on drugs. 3 points about legalized drugs billions in increased taxes, billions in avoided costs and harder for kids to get drugs. Drug dealers don't ask for id. Just ask an 18 year old "which is harder to find cigarettes or drugs?"

I thought our great constitution gave people the right to pursue happiness yet happiness is resricted by government policies. The government says pot is bad for your health unless prescribed by a doctor. The government doesn't want us to destroy our bodies using the unregulated drug marijuana they perfer us to mess up our bodies the old fashion way with a 5th of Jack Danials.

I am not a pot smoker, never have been, but I believe in legalizing it in order to TAX it like alcohol. I've never seen or heard of a violent "stoner", but have seen many violent "drunks". Legalizing would take the money out of it for the dealers, smugglers and the like, which would automatically reduce the associated violence of the "dealing". It should be treated the same as alcohol, whether that's legal or illegal. I also know that just like alcohol, the effects are different for every person. Some people can seemingly "function" while being a regular user, while others cannot. I disagree with anyone who believes they are not a hazard to society if they drive under the influence of any substance. Save it for home, behind closed doors, and I think most people would accept it.

Drew Griffin's comments are expected. He is a public servant supported by tax dollars and drilled in the evils of marijuana. The consequences of pot smoking pale compared to nicotine and we spend nothing to discourage that. We started with $30 billion a year for this "War on Drugs" and we have destroyed our legal system clogging it with minor pot offenses, shut down the judicial system, expanded our prison system to accommodate over two million "criminals", about 80% of which are drug offenders. The cost of all this puritanical nonsense is costing America far in excess of $100 billion a year and costs $35 thousand per year to house the "offenders". The legalization of pot would be far, far and away better than this. Use the profits to educate. You can not bring about change in our culture by a bunch of Rambo's yelling "get on the ground, now!!" and dragging the offenders off to jail. A system that merits the contempt of every knowledgeable citizen is a system that should be discarded.

Drew:
It is a bad idea to legalize pot, since, young folks will purchased it...

Dennis Junior said:
'It is a bad idea to legalize pot, since, young folks will purchased it…'

And how does an unregulated black market prevent teenage marijuana use?

Young folks will try to purchase pot rather it's legal or illegal. You focus the police on the people supplying it to them.

Would a Journalist have been asking this question 2 years ago? Not a chance. Why would this question be posted in the National spot light now. This question will never be touched by any politician unless both parties agree on the legalization question, since this is unlikely what is the point. Now if someone wants to talk about medical pot. then you might have a chance of the topic being addressed.

Andy

Louis Armstrong wrote a letter to Eisenhower in the 50's that had a part about legalizing marijuana. Starting in the late 60's we've had a national debate off and on about it. It will happen state by state if the feds respect federalism.

By reading your article, I have just wasted five minutes of my life. Your article fails to persuade me that you know nothing about marijuana. Please don't go around flaunting the idea that marijuana leads to more dangerous narcotics. Your idea of associating marijuana to alcohol is a false idea, I have driven high and can tell you it is no where close as to driving under the influence of alcohol.

I smoke weed and I am a loser....it is as simple as that?

It is beyond ridiculous that alcohol is legal and pot is illegal. I do neither. It is an example of government out of control and excessively intruding into the lives of our citizens. The pot question is a symptom of a government on the brink of becoming a dictatorship. Nothing has done more to destroy the legal system of this country than the so called "war on drugs" and it would be a thousand times better to legalize all drugs than continue this way. It could not possibly be this bad. Like the wino's of big cities, we would have a few more pot heads doing pot to excess. If we outlawed pot and liquor, we would have just as many abusers. It is like guns. People will get them anyway.

It should not have been illegal in the first place. If you spend even a few minutes on actual research you can find out the reasons for it being illegal were based on incorrect information and racial paranoia. Those are the facts and are not in dispute. The government later did studies on it and concluded that it 'should not be illegal', but it was kept illegal anyway as a means to control those against the war effort in Vietnam. As it was associated with free thought.

I do not smoke Marijuana personally, but I have tried it in the past and found it was totally harmless. Nor do I support the prison state or the massive amount of taxes we waste in the attempt to control people's lives in a certain way that is the most profitable for some companies.

If someone wants to smoke a harmless substance in their own home, our government should be enlightened enough to let them, instead of putting them into prisons or calling them criminals.

The reason so many do not respect the laws and the rule of law in America, is simply because there are some really dumb laws and dumb ideas out there. If something is illegal, there should be a very good reason for it. Reefer madness, or blacks seducing white women by using marijuana, is not a good one. It is in fact unethical and extremely ignorant of history, society, and of freedom itself.

i feel as though this article just degrades pot smokers rather than being informative about the situation at hand. also, i don't think you should be saying that all pot smokers are losers. who are you to classify someone as a loser anyway?

i agree that people should be allowed to smoke marijuana. the legalization will keep the violence related to "secret" drug deals and scared pot smokers down. it will also take some drug dealers off the street.

This unenlightened "reporter" has obviously been on the government band wagon for years and buys all of the same pathetic propaganda.

Cops don't want it legal because that would mean less busts for them and less chance of moving up the ladder.

The most benign substance on the planet will be fully legal one day.

My only problem with regulation by the state simply means another industry to be corrupted. Don't think for a second it can't happen.

Get the hell out of our lives Big Brother.

Every time drugs are discussed it's always about the "children".
Teen pot use always goes down when ever the illegality of weed is removed.

Besides, who cares about teens smoking weed anyway?
Alcohol is far worse.

Take California for instance. Pot shops everywhere and most of them are empty. Why? Because it's not a big deal and it is fully controlled and people are sensible about it.

We should be MORE concerned with endless war, trillion $$$ deficits, bailouts, and the ultimate demise of America.

I feel like pot should be legalized. If our government put a tax on pot, then our economy will make a lot of money. Even though most drug dealers would be put of business they wouldnt have to worry about getting arrested. But with legalizing pot there would be some down falls. I feel like weed was put on Earth for a reason, so why let it go to waste because our econmy has made it illegal.

pot is not addicting