American police currently behave as a paramilitary, occupying mafia just slightly less terrible than anarchy.
There are so many tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people whose livelihood is tried up in arresting people for drug crimes that shouldn't be illegal in the first place. Think about all those DEA agents making $100k a year plus their pensions, all those judges and public defenders, all those private prisons full of people doing possession charges. All those local cops employed to keep an eye on them during probation.
It's absolutely disgusting and ruins peoples' lives on a daily basis, but totally expected behavior in a society that only cares about money (aka capitalism).
I am sort of surprised there isn't a lot more backlash against the DEA for this horrible move last week, but then again, the pro-pot legalization movement isn't all that impressive either. The most annoying thing about marijuana is fucking idiot stoners representing the brand.
edit: and don't even get me started on the huge amount of needless deaths in northern Mexico directly caused by the War on Drugs. Go read 2666 if you want a sliver of an idea of how bad it is there. But hey, to the average American, they are brown people so they don't care. Disgusting.
this so much - most people associate pot with braindead pathetic existences in the fringe of society, who are the loudest of the crowd. i've met senior software engineers, doctors, managers of all levels and so on doing it recreationally, for decades and having a normal life. those using alcohol for similar relaxing effect after hard day ended up in worse state, and it costed them much, much more in long term