The ban on the recreational use of marijuana isn't based on a cost/benefit analysis. It's just something that remains law, because trying to repeal it is not po

The ban on the recreational use of marijuana isn't based on a cost/benefit analysis. It's just something that remains law, because trying to repeal it is not politically beneficial (yet), and potentially career-limiting for a politician. I suspect that the sunk-cost fallacy (or similar flaws in human reasoning) plays a role as well. Decriminalizing something after it has been highly illegal for decades means coming to terms with the fact that that policy was wrong and a waste of tax payers money — i.e., if it wasn't, why repeal those laws? That's not something policy makers like to do (consciously or otherwise), because of a fear of how it will reflect on them.