The most of pro-prohibition crowds are either not-so-bright people who grab all their wisdom from TV without any proper experience whatsoever beyond alcohol & cigarettes, or law-enforcement-related people. As in many other cases, I believe following money explains it nicely. Ignoring the former redneck case, the rest has actually good bussiness case for latter. Ie legalize weed US nationwide, and many prisons (let's not forget many are private owned by investors, who want only one thign - maximize their profits by having as many inmates as possible), DEA loses maybe 90% of the success claims they have, and maybe local police can have more time dealing with serious issues. For conservative politicians, its political ammo par exellence, since if they will go hardline on drugs, there are very few risks to their career, and they can always claim all the usual stuff (drugs are destroying families and young people, we care about them etc... ever heard that?). Ask yourself - what can a politician gain vs lose bybeing pro-weed in US?

Too lazy to look it up, but if I remember correctly that one of DEA chiefs was also head of some UN panel on drugs, which then enforce rules for all UN member states (read whole world maybe except North Korea). From first glance, it might make sense. But show me one career-oriented competitive guy (and being head of such an agency, you have to be at least that, and have a lot of political games skills), who would undermine his own little kingdom, and make his own subordinates lose job by declaring that some of most popular drugs shouldn't be banned. One real example - weed & hashish have thousand years of history in hindu culture (look up shiva day when almost all india is high), yet they had to ban it after they joined UN.

So, we can thank those guys for making policies that worldwide raise crime, help supporting organized crime on massive scale (brutal mexical cartels are a fine example, out of many, ie afghanistan)

It's like thinking, that in banking/trading/brokering, it's always the client's best interest that's primary drive. Well yes of course, unless the bussiness is funded mainly by operational fees. WHat do those brokers do? Make you do as many operations as possible, of course, without being too obvious :)

(*no references here :))