You seem to venture a bit from the topic of that article. It was primarily aimed at making people THINK about the repercussions of legalizing marijuana solely because it is a potential cash cow. Doing so would overlook far better reasons for marijuana to be legalized in this country. Do you want your “victory” so bad that you would accept it to the detriment of those who might actually need marijuana as medicine rather than just for personal use? What about if the government legalized marijuana, but reserved the right to impose taxes without limit on it? Still ok with you? If yes, you would accept legalization on any terms it seems. If we get legalization wrong on the first try (and you and I both well know that governments screw up all the time), what could happen to those people who were truly benefitting from their marijuana prescription? What I really wanted was to force people to think beyond what they want for themselves and think about the best ways to achieve sustainable legalization around the nation (and money isn’t the right answer in my opinion, which is why it was denoted as “commentary”.) What happens to your de-facto acceptance situation if we get it wrong? If we tax cannabis and simply tolerate marijuana, I have no problem with. But that isn’t likely to happen. The federal government will step in at some point to either codify what is going on, or marijuana groups will take action and try to get laws changed themselves. Take a look at California’s newly proposed “Tax Cannabis 2010” initiative. If you think that initiative hits the nail on the head, I would suggest a closer read. There are some good articles on it, this one for example: http://bit.ly/QtjU3 I never said and wouldn’t expect any of the things you mentioned in your comment to happen. Not sure where you got that from. You do not know my terms, I have never publicly stated what terms I would want for marijuana legalization. I simply proposed the commentary to see if money was the most important reason that people who smoke, who are not smokers, who have a negative perception of marijuana, and medical marijuana patients (I mean REAL medical marijuana patients, not some kid who got a card because he claimed to have headaches) think marijuana should be legalized.

I'm confused....you want marijuana legal, o.k. so do I. You just don't want it legalized to generate tax revenue? Or you don't want taxation to achieve legalization by de-facto acceptance? What difference does it make? Is it that you want the government, maybe the President to stand up and admit that seven decades of prohibition was wrong? Maybe admit that the millions of lives ruined and the millions of man-years spent in prisons were unneeded? Maybe they will release the thousands of pot prisoners?I know why you are fighting prohibition, I know why we all are. But to reject victory because it wasn't strictly on your terms is childish. And to think that the government would undermine it's own legitimacy by making admissions like that, even when true, is naive.