[jMyles]

I've never understood why a safer, more benign drug, such as cannabis, immediately evokes a greater need for legalization.

Marijuana prohibition is not, for the most part, visiting anywhere near the misery on the human species that heroin prohibition is. Tens of thousands of people are kidnapped, tortured, or murdered every year in wars over heroin distribution. Addiction to heroin is made much, much worse under prohibition.

In fact, in the presence of prohibition, you're much more likely to find these concentrated forms of plant medicines precisely because people are unwilling to take the risk to smuggle whole plant matter.

This phenomenon is also observable with coca and cocaine. Cocaine obviously has the capacity to seriously destroy communities and lives. However, it doesn't have this effect on everyone. And, among people who use the entire plant for tea or as a chew - which is typical in places where the plant is legal and indigenous - it is utterly benign.