The first and most basic reason that marijuana should be legal is that there is no good reason for it not to be legal. Some people ask 'why should marijuana be legalized?" but we should ask "Why should marijuana be illegal?" From a philosophical point of view, individuals deserve the right to make choices for themselves. The government only has a right to limit those choices if the individual's actions endanger someone else. This does not apply to marijuana, since the individual who chooses to use marijuana does so according to his or her own free will. The government also may have a right to limit individual actions if the actions pose a significant threat to the individual. But this argument does not logically apply to marijuana because marijuana is far less dangerous than some drugs which are legal, such as alcohol and tobacco.

I agree with this but because I believe that this issue should be left to the states to decide.  Maybe it should be legal, maybe it shouldn't, but most significantly states should decide for themselves.  There is great room for agreement on this point.  

Barack,

You needed the internet  to get elected. You will continue to require internet support. Listen to your constituents.

If you had been arrested for your use of marijuana you would never have been elected president.

Cannabis should be made legal for personal use at the Federal level. Just because one doesn't agree with their neighbor's use of their time and resources, is no reason to ban it. States shouldn't be allowed to write morality into law.

MEXICAN DRUG WAR is AMERICAN DRUG WAR

I strongly encourage everyone who votes up this idea to vote up the idea MEXICAN DRUG WAR is AMERICAN DRUG WAR: Revamp the Controlled Substance Act for Border Security

Here's where you can find it:
http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ideas/viewIdea.apexp?id=087800000004mhk&srPos=2&srKp=087

To be politically expedient, we should not be asking Obama to "legalize marijuana." We should ask him to revamp the Controlled Substance Act, descheduling marijuana so that it may eventually be feasible to make legalized.

Since it is a new idea and needing a BOOST, please vote this up and encourage all your friends to do so as well!

As a liberal progressive I hate to say this, but I'm hoping some conservative voices will start posting here so this forum doesn't turn into an immature version of Daily Kos.

THIS IS THE PRESIDENT'S FORUM.  SHOW HIM SOME RESPECT.

Marijuana issues may be worthy of discussion and laws may need revision.  But one thing I do know:  With the potential of Iran nuking Chicago in the next couple of years, with my job gone, with people I know caught overseas in two military engagements - - to watch my countrymen obsess about marijuana when we have this wonderful opportunity to express ourselves to the new President is depressing.

well perhaps it's time our voices be heard so we don't have to keep shouting.

The economy is a major issue, and the waste of resources by making criminals out of otherwise law abiding citizens because they choose to smoke marijuana for the personal enjoyment, even putting aside the medical aspect of marijuana, is absurd. 

Our courts are overwhelmed and our prisons are overpopulated because we give harsher sentences to pot smokers than we do to animal abusers, child molesters or domestic abusers.

The savings from the enforcement end coupled with the revenue from taxation using the tobacco and alcohol models would be far from insignificant.

Stop wasting the money on enforcement of this modern prohibition and kick start the small farm, and collect taxes on the manufacture and distribution of this basically harmless natural herb.

More people have died since I started this post from alcohol than have died in the entire Bush term from using marijuana

Will People begin to listen? We have to start somewhere.

Marijuana = Freedom

But, let's not focus on it now, because we have other more important items.

Plus, the economy doesn't need more dollars to support it right?

Plus, people don't need alternative health care, or even alternative medicine, right?

Plus, we need to continue a good rate on the street dealers profit, they have a market too!!

And most importantly, MARIJUANA SHALL REMAIN ILLEGAL, because our laws our 100% correct and never wrong!!!

During the election campaigning I had great hopes for this country with a new type of person elected for president. Give it a chance he's not even president yet. But dont doubt Obama you better tell your feds to keep extra ammo if they are coming to my house. Marijuana is probably the way to save this countries economy and theres no reason for me to list why to an educated group of people. First and foremost lets look into industrial hemp issues because the fact that is illegal is even more ignorant than marijuana being illegal

The only phrase one needs to understand is "Victimless Crime."  Smoking marijuana hurts no one.  Any effects that are harmful are caused by one's free will to choose - as is the case with alcohol and tobacco.  Give us the power to make our own choices and don't punish us for things that hurt nobody.  

Whoever thinks that this issue is not important is a cruel and selfish citizen.
 

Cancer patients are dying with big pharma's chemical experimental drugs.
 

The cure for cancer is Hemp Oil. Big pharma knows this and this is why they lobby heavily to keep it illegal.
 
They are in the meantime amassing patents with identical elements in hemp and touting it as a cure or palliative.
 
Most cancer patients need Hemp Oil. It has nothing to do with smoking it and getting high.

There is no reason to take big pharma's synthetic compounds that are identical to what is found in a $0 plant you can grow for yourself.
 
Case in point "Marinol" which costs upward of a few hundred dollars for a months supply. It is nothing but synthetic THC, which a drug company is selling.
 
The patients are put not only to great harm financially buying it but also suffer from the severe side effects of the synthetic THC.

If you think there is any other issue more important than this where people are dying unnecessarily, then you are .. oh yeah a cruel and selfish citizen.

Thanks for reading. Now go watch these movies and research these links.

http://www.geocities.com/runfromthecure/

http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/radon/DDS-9.html

When you see that map of the US with all the radiation that you get from the ground. Think like this. How long do you have before your cancers manifest in tests ?.
 

For the more scientifically oriented person.

http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/radon/usagamma.gif

From this map, someone living east of the california border would get upward of

8 uR/hr

A year has 365 * 24 =  8760 hours.

Therefore this person that lives in such a place will get 70 milliR

That accumulated over a lifetime would equal many more milliR of exposure.

The very fact that we are all bombarded by these gamma ray and other radioactive rays right from our earth, which seems so innocent to the naked eye, should signal in your brain that any RNA or DNA or other molecule could get astray by just 1 ray of all those 70 milliR of radiation. Essentially we are being fried by unseeable radiation and waves that mankind generate that it is not a question of if but when we all will succumb to cancers.


Enjoy!

Please release Medical Marijuana in the non-compassionate states, Please don't make us beg like dogs anymore to have the God given right to decide what side effects of our medicines we can deal with.

The loss of my eyes health and the loss of my pancreas's health and the loss of my skin, kidney's, liver and brains health due to long term pain management using deadly pharmaceuticals is a crime, it is attempted murder, especially since there is a safer more effective natural medicine that could have been prescribed to me, IF my state reps had done their job and truely researched Medical Marijuana, IF one of my state reps would have taken any of my letters serouisly instead of sending me unresearched pat political letters back to me with false information, I am a patient, I am not stupid, except to have taken those doctors prescribed medicines that destroyed my body more instead of helping me get better and productive, and for trusting the FDA,  I have no more money to give to the pharmaceutical companies and thier stock holders.

I beg for you to allow me to use a safer medicine and try to save what is left of my body, of my life, I am still needed here.

marijuana has never killed anyone, but yet alcohol[that kills people EVERYDAY] is legal every where, basically. i know there is a way for the government to get around their supposed taxing of marijuana issue. there are plenty of ways to tax it. they did it with alcohol, why not marijuana! and there are so many people out there all over the country who need it for medicinal purposes that aren't getting the treatment they need because they government thinks it should be illegal. i completely disagree, because there are far worse things that are legal and should be illegal and marijuana is completely safe.

Marijuana decriminalization should be left up to the states to decide.  We have several states now that have voted to allow medical use, and several states that have made it a civil issue if the citizen is holding less than a certain amount.  The Federal Government should not be able to raid/arrest people who are not breaking the laws that the constituents of their State approved!