I agreed with the vast majority of what DukeOfMarshall said on this topic. I agree that cannabis should be decriminalised and regulated in a similar fashion to other helpful drugs.
Perhaps one of the reasons the government is so into persecuting people who use cannabis is they want to have more "slaves" in their privatised prisons who will provide cheap labour and help them degenerate society and the freedoms people have even further. Think of all those people in jail for bogus mandatory minimum sentences for small amounts of cannabis who are away from their spouses and children. If you look at the number of African American single mothers there are you'd be amazed.
I'm a Paramedic and it's my job to push opiates like Morphine, Demerol, and Fentanyl into people to help them during a crisis. Hashem gave us alcohol, food, opium, cocaine, and cannabis to help us. It is obvious that these substances can be abused, but let's not throw out the baby with the bath water.