It was all avoidable ...

[Garrett]

In 1972, the Shafer Commission submitted it's official report. Their methodology was enlightened and scientific. They carefully weighed historical and societal factors. Their recommendations would have saved billions of taxpayer dollars ... and saved millions of lives from both a legal and a medical standpoint.

Their summary is below ..

 

The Report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse

Chapter V

marihuana and social policy

A Final Comment

In this Chapter, we have carefully considered the spectrum of social and legal policy alternatives. On the basis of our findings, discussed in previous Chapters, we have concluded that society should seek to discourage use, while concentrating its attention on the prevention and treatment of heavy and very heavy use. The Commission feels that the criminalization of possession of marihuana for personal is socially self-defeating as a means of achieving this objective. We have attempted to balance individual freedom on one hand and the obligation of the state to consider the wider social good on the other. We believe our recommended scheme will permit society to exercise its control and influence in ways most useful and efficient, meanwhile reserving to the individual American his sense of privacy, his sense of individuality, and, within the context of ail interacting and interdependent society, his options to select his own life style, values, goals and opportunities.

The Commission sincerely hopes that the tone of cautious restraint sounded in this Report will be perpetuated in the debate which will follow it. For those who feel we have not proceeded far enough, we are reminded of Thomas Jefferson's advice to George Washington that "Delay is preferable to error." For those who argue we have gone too far, we note Roscoe Pound's statement, "The law must be stable, but it must not stand still."

We have carefully analyzed the interrelationship between marihuana the drug, marihuana use as a behavior, and marihuana as a social problem. Recognizing the extensive degree of misinformation about marihuana as a drug, we have tried to demythologize it. Viewing the use of marihuana in its wider social context, we have tried to desymbolize it.

Considering the range of social concerns in contemporary America, marihuana does not, in our considered judgment, rank very high. We would deemphasize marihuana as a problem.

The existing social and legal policy is out of proportion to the individual and social harm engendered by the use of the drug. To replace it, we have attempted to design a suitable social policy, which we believe is fair, cautious and attuned to the social realities of our time.

 

The full report and the wiki blurb and below ...

 

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/nc/ncmenu.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shafer_Commission

 

If, in 1972, a group of reasonable people could clearly plan a path to correctly address marijuana ... surly we can do the same in 2017

There is always hope ...

[AmishRnot4ganja]

There is no hope. People who are against marijuana have only become more entrenched in their misguided views since this report was issued (Jeff Sessions and Newt Gingrich for example). 

Why do people ignore science and reason when it comes to marijuana? I don't know. For the same reason that people believe the crap that comes out of Donald Trump maybe?

[Wild Bill]

On 7/24/2017 at 5:23 AM, AmishRnot4ganja said:

Why do people ignore science and reason when it comes to marijuana?

Economics. There is an entire segment of society whose jobs depend on a war against the citizens.