Marijuana is safer than alcohol or tobacco, and it's certainly safer than whatever recreational substance some guy is cooking up in his lab. Why is it illegal?

Marijuana is safer than alcohol or tobacco, and it's certainly safer than whatever recreational substance some guy is cooking up in his lab. Why is it illegal? Have you seen "Reefer Madness"? Scientific piece of work, that. Meanwhile, some kids at Georgetown University face 20 years in prison for making an illegal but less intense version of a drug which is legal in 47 states: http://reason.com/blog/2010/10/26/the-georgetown-drug-lab-bust-m http://reason.com/blog/2010/10/26/the-georgetown-drug-lab-bu.... A huge short-term risk from most recreational drugs is simply not knowing what is in them, especially if they come in a pill, powder, or liquid form. And that is an effect of prohibition, not the drugs themselves. Of course government officials will pontificate on the horrors of drugs every time prohibition kills another kid that doesn't know what is in his ecstasy.