> So why hasn't it been legalized federally? From my layman point of view, there is a lot involved with legalizing federally. Some of the obvious points that I

> So why hasn't it been legalized federally? From my layman point of view, there is a lot involved with legalizing federally. Some of the obvious points that I can think of are: 1. Career politicians don't want to seem "soft on drugs or crime". This seems to be changing, but it's a slow roll. 2. Agency funding. The DEA gets a ton of money to enforce these federal laws. This has many layers to it and it seems much more complex than what I'm aware of, but I can imagine that all the people who currently get paid to enforce the ban on cannabis would be against this because there would likely be decreased funding to them (or at the very least, their roles would be changed). 3. Lobbying. Many people might want cannabis to be legal, but a lot of business do not because it could hurt their business. Big pharma has made a ton of money from prescription drugs that might possibly be replaced by a plant that people can grow on their own. These companies pay our representatives, and then representatives vote in their interests. One of the reasons cannabis was made illegal in the first place was because of a paper company that felt threatened by the use of industrial hemp. 4. In addition to the points related to money above (agency funding, lobbying), there are private prisons that make money from offenders of the current crimes in place. Police departments can get easy revenue from fines related to cannabis. Big pharma doesn't want legal alternatives to their drugs. Cartels also have an interest in keeping cannabis illegal. Alcohol companies may even be incentivized to keep it illegal so that alcohol remains the vice/drug of choice (this seems to be changing, major hard beverage companies have invested in cannabis companies). These are some of (not all) the main reasons for why I think it's taking much longer than we would like.