Hi! Twin Moose
You asked about taxation ......
Just remember how many tax dollars went to fund the justice system and police during the past 50 years. Do you know how many judges and courtrooms and jails they had to build in order to enforce what the government knew was uncontrollable?
The government knew it was harmless as well and knew it was not addictive as alcohol was or cigarettes. But they had to invent levers of control within society because young people are the revolutionaries within all societies. It worked really well during the 1960's and 70's and with the hippies.
Imagine the size of a bale of Marijuana? Imagine the smell of it? There were millions and millions of these 400 pound bales (not little 7 gram packets ..... but bales) travelling across North America. Today they claim that they can prevent a terrorist from travelling around but they could not prevent a 400 pound smelly bale of pot travelling around for the past 50 years.
The cops sort of let it happen in order to continue "Selected Enforcement". The cops used drugs as a reason to stop and frisk. A reason to search a home, a reason to create a department of informants and on and on. Banking systems were monitored.
As an example, I remember when the Supreme Court said that it was illegal for the cops to stop and search a car without just cause.
Within a year, the cops invented the "Town Drunk" as a bogeyman and began to stop cars at Christmas time and then it was May 24th weekend and in less than 5 years it was 24-7.
It's all about control. And today they have all the anti-terror legislation, all the informants, all the banking systems all the telephone calls and contact information, facial recognition, and cell phone locations ...... They don't need to criminalize drugs anymore.