Soap box about weed

Before I start this rant, I want to say that I do not smoke weed. I have enough trouble staying out of my fridge without a lethargy inducing drug making me ravenous.

A Bag Of Weed - The best bloopers are here
So this is going on in California right now. In case you live under a rock and aren't aware, the state of California is in financial ruin, with a deficit between $12 and $42 Billion depending on who you ask. One of the proposed plans to fix this clusterfuck is to legalize and tax the use and sale of Marijuana. One of the arguments against this plan is that legalizing pot will lead to an increase in crime. While I don't myself smoke pot, I have at least a dozen very close friends who do. In the years I've known them, the only "crime" they've been accused of because of smoking weed, was getting caught with weed. None of them have ever gotten stoned and crashed their car into a minivan, hit their girlfriends, or stabbed someone. Those three acts were all real things that acquaintances have done while under the influence of alcohol however. Alcohol is legal. Not one person has ever overdosed from smoking too much pot. My freshman year I knew three girls who got alcohol poisoning. What I see as the problem with pot currently is that it is extremely easy to get, but to get it without a medical license, you have to deal with some seedy people. The illegal drug trade is what I see as the problem. If pot is legalized, and regulated, that puts a major thorn in the side of the drug cartels in Mexico. American prisoners incarcerated for marijuana cost tax payers approximately $1 Billion a year. Therefore legalizing marijuana would not only cut the prison population, and save tax payers billions, it also has the potential to generate billions in revenue if simply taxed. $1.3 Billion to be exact. So let's say that the California deficit is an even $20 Billion. Let's be generous to the conservative party and say that the pot tax could generate $1 Billion a year. We won't even figure in the millions that would be saved by not prosecuting legal adults found in possession of marijuana. That $1 Billion is money that could be saved for schools, after school programs, and the arts that Schwarzenegger has been forced to cut.
For me the bottom line draws out to this: I would gladly put up with a couple more pot heads out there if it means children in grade school get to have music class. Pot in California is already so easy to get, making it legal isn't going to drastically change the amount of users. I'm sure as hell still not going to smoke it. Making it legal is still not going to make it a lethal drug. Who knows it might actually make it less desirable. It's not that cool to rebel against your parents unless you can get in real trouble for it anyway.