Legalize pot to save dough

LE JOURNAL DU BARREAU I've decided that we should legalize marijuana to save money. Screw all the other reasons. Studies have shown that it is pretty much harmless (comparable to tobacco or alcohol) yet we waste so much money on it. On KUOW's show Weekday yesterday they interviewed David Matlin about prison abuses. But the part of the discussion that interested me most was that the prison industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the country. He said that in the last 20-25 years the money spent on prisons increased 169% (compared to only a 24% increase in spending on education) and we spend more on prisons than we do on public health. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons 54.1% of prisoners are in on drug offenses. DrugWarFacts.org says that 45.3% of drug offenses were for marijuana. How much money could the US save if we weren't housing all of these marijuana offenders, let alone the money spend on the law enforcement and judicial aspects of the problem? More interesting statistics on drugs & prisons