The War on Drugs - which is a shorthand name for the actual policy, the War on Drugs That Do Not Have A Powerful US Lobby - is being won!  Not by the US government, but at least someone is winning.

I'm talking about marijuana.

According to the National Drug Control Strategy 2009 Budget Summary, "Marijuana continues to be the most widely used and readily available drug in the United States."  The National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that in 2006, over 97 million Americans had used marijuana at least once in their lifetime, an amount greater than all other illicit substance usage combined.  Put another way, one of every three Americans has used marijuana.

As such, it is easy to understand how the weed has launched to the forefront of the War on Drugs.  Historically, this is the first time marijuana use has caused something to launch to the forefront of anything.

But in light of pot prevalence, and the failure of government policies to reduce that prevalence by targeting supply rather than demand, people are questioning the wisdom of anti-marijuana policies.  Now more than any time since the early 1970s, a vocal minority is favoring a more mellow approach, as OhMyGov! has previously reported.  Are decriminalization movements popping up because of weed's rising popularity?  Or are people simply lashing back from a tighter federal grip on how they run their lives?

Either way, liberals and conservatives everywhere are confused.  Those who favor a smaller national government that minds its own business and those who support a free market economy are not generally in league with pot-smoking hippies.  And yet, legal, state-regulated, taxed marijuana promises to yield high revenues, especially if the cartels are made obsolete and the War on Drugs becomes half-won (and therefore half as expensive).  

I can already see the government posters: "Buy American Pot."

Recent evidence shows that illicit drug use remains largely unchanged year to year. The difference in drug use between 2004 and 2005 was not statistically significant (save for methamphetamine use being down and OxyContin use up).  Meanwhile, $11.9 billion was spent combating drug use in 2004, increasing by $300 million the next year.

For 2008, $13.7 billion was appropriated for 12 federal agencies to combat drug proliferation and use, with over $14 billion slated for 2009.  However, the Office of National Drug Control Policy estimates that Americans spend only $10.5 billion on their marijuana per year.  Drug enforcement officials could have just bought all the pot and disposed of it however they pleased. (Those looking for a quick high could gather around the pot bonfire.)

Harvard Economics Professor Jeffrey A. Miron has a better idea. He estimates that legalizing marijuana would save $7.7 billion per year in government expenditures and add $6.2 billion in revenue if the wacky tobaccy were taxed like regular tobacco, amounting to a net gain of $14 billion for the U.S. government.

Non-economists have their own reason for lobbying in favor of legal marijuana.  The plant is thought to offer medicinal remedies (to nausea and glaucoma, for example), as well as totally rad hemp clothing.  Furthermore, it is hard to call pot-smoking ‘substance abuse' when it is more victimless than alcohol use.  When was the last time you heard about a pot smoker getting stoned and starting a fight with his wife or fellow bar patrons?

Those that oppose the legalization of pot worry about the drug's overall adverse health effects and gateway potential - a popular but mostly unsubstantiated theory that those who smoke pot will end up using harder drugs.  If that theory applied to all, half the country would have tried cocaine, heroine, or ecstasy, given the amount that have tried pot. As for the health effects argument, clearly, smoking anything isn't a good idea for the lungs.

Others worry that legalizing marijuana would increase the rate of drug-dependence, flooding already crowded drug treatment centers for addiction.  Despite counter arguments by High Times magazine, the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization have labeled marijuana an addictive substance, albeit one that is far less addictive than alcohol.  

Still, as long as government is by the people, and its duly elected representatives deem it their responsibility to be total narcs, then it can be argued that the government we have chosen is the government we deserve.

"I bet now you regret not inviting us to your pot parties," say our nation's current leaders.  

But maybe narcs, hippies, and staunch states-rights republicans (a seemingly passé group these days) can learn to live together.  Oregon is considering a referendum, for 2010 to legalize the sale of pot to adults over 21 years of age.  And if marijuana use really is so widespread, should it be that difficult for this referendum (and others) to pass?  

As long as Mary Jane's friends all remember to get out off that bean bag chair and vote, Oregon may be the first state Cheech and Chong visit on their revival comedy tour.

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