The case for California's Prop 19

Marijuana is the US's biggest cash crop, with a host of benign uses, so why not legalise and tax it and make us all happy?
Joseph Huff-Hannon
The Guardian (UK)
Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Over a dozen US states have already decriminalised possession or personal use of cannabis, and Denver, Colorado and Oakland, California are already home to thriving (and profitable) medical marijuana industries. Meanwhile, in liberal New York City, we've seen a sweeping expansion of marijuana-related arrests in the last few years, and in LA and other major cities of California, black people are arrested at twice, thrice and up to seven times the rate of white people, despite federal studies that show that marijuana is used more commonly by white Americans.