Should marijuana be legalized?

Anival Valadez wrote an interesting post titled Weeds that talks about the amount of time and money the U.S government has spent on cannabis (marijuana), and the benefits that the U.S would get from legalizing this plant.

I have read this post and can say that I completely agree with Anival that the U.S should legalize weed as it would do more good than harm. I agree with Anival that marijuana is not a gateway drug as I know many people who smoke marijuana and have not even thought of trying other kinds of drugs. One thing I do not understand about our governments logic of keeping marijuana illegal is how they say its dangerous and habitual when they allow alcohol and tobacco to be sold legally in the U.S. Marijuana has been scientifically proven to be less harmful then tobacco, and not an addictive substance such as nicotine in tobacco. Tobacco and alcohol combined are the cause of over half a million deaths in the U.S a year and yet the government still allows these to be sold legally when marijuana is illegal and has no known cause of death but is still considered dangerous by the government. If they were so worried about how much danger products in to market cause they should have banned tobacco and alcohol a long time ago. As Anival also says legalizing marijuana would be a huge boost to the U.S economy if a tax were applied, this would help lower the unemployment rate and raise money to help the  U.S get out of the massive debt its in currently.