Legalization of Weed

After watching the two documentaries, after reading some articles, and after seeing both sides of the debate, I strongly believe that marijuana should be legalized. Its not a question of letting some stoners smoke a joint, or promoting a certain type of lifestyle, legalizing marijuana is about civil liberties. The documentary presented really shocking facts about police brutality and the mass incarceration rate of the United States which are simply atrocious. I can only parallel this type of persecution to the religious struggles of the 17th century where people were forced to follow Catholicism over Protestantism. If the government was really concerned about a person's wellbeing as they claim, they wouldn't allow other harmful behaviors such as drinking or smoking tobacco to be legal. However, the war on drugs such as marijuana has proven to be extremely profitable because the police can claim assets from 'drug dealers'. There is also the issue of the private prisons which have to meet a certain quota of prisoners. This sounds so wrong to me, a society should be happy that prisons are empty because that means that the population is not committing crimes. In addition to leading to unfair incarcerations, the criminalization of marijuana also prevents people from experiencing the medicinal properties of marijuana. The video showed a video an epileptic girl that seemed to be miraculously cured simply by taking a dosage of marijuana medicine. Compared to the highly toxic pills that so many people take, a plant medicine such as marijuana is natural and cannot harm a person's body in such an aggressive way. For these reasons, I believe that marijuana should be legalized.