Since former President Richard Nixon declared the War on Drugs in 1971, the most powerful nation in the world has not been able to defeat the lowly cannabis plant. Our country has spent an estimated $1 trillion of our tax dollars to fight this war. Slowly, states like Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington as well as 70 percent of voters in Washington D.C. have realized this futility and have legalized recreational marijuana use. The 109th Tennessee General Assembly should do the same.
Even with our state government wasting millions of taxpayer dollars each year on the Governor's marijuana eradication program, marijuana continues to be one of Tennessee's most lucrative cash crops. As long as there is an active black market, people are going to outsmart law enforcement by finding ways to grow and import marijuana for profit. If we want to curb the black market, the only way to accomplish this is through legalization and regulation, as our country learned during its failed experiment with Prohibition in the 1920s.
