Agreed. Jail is a waste of resources as well as time for people who really don't belong there and so don't merit the expense and effort (and loss of employment and all the rest).

Related to this is reform of other things specifically with drug crimes and notably with marijuana, not only the laws prohibiting growing the plants (“manufacturing a controlled substance”) but related abuse, first and foremost being civil asset forfeiture (seizures = legalized government plunder or robbery).

It's not just the libertarian mainstream-American position here (“libertarian” being an abused word!) that is the issue, but practicality. Marijuana is arguably less harmful than alcohol, and that should affect how it is treated. The alcohol model is certainly a model to begin to use for reform, though it might obviously be treated differently, since it is a different drug. The real-world curiosity will be not if it may be available to adults someday (restrictions similar to alcohol, which is sensible), but if or when it will become legal to grow (and harvest) the plants someday, which makes sense to me (and appeals to me) as a gardener, in particular.

Medical marijuana and related activism is just a “front” for legalization, and people involved in this would be more respectable as well as grown-up and intelligent if they went straight and fully toward the real goal, which is decriminalization or at least substantial revision of marijuana laws. (No, not all drugs are the same and can be expected to be treated the same, not in the real world.)

I've always felt that if beer is legal, then pot should also be legal. Perhaps that's the libertarian in me coming out – but it's fair.

Americans are going to see that legalizing medical marijuana isn't going to be the disaster that the fearmongering drug warriors claim, and once that happens, hopefully the drug warrior propagandists will be marginalized, and the country can work toward repealing marijuana laws altogether.