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I can see a lot more interstate trafficing arrests in the near future.  Many will be buying up ounces at a time at a lower rate from the cartels and street pushers and moving it to their state for resale.  There will also be increased arrests among users who can travel to Washington or Colorado to buy their own 365 day supply for less than what they can buy it for at home.  Proving this will be difficult and more users will face larger sentences.  While this won't up the cost in the states where the drug was purchased legally, it will increase the expenses taken on by other states.

With 18 states and D.C. enacting medical marijuana laws, the federal government needs to figure out how to deal with it.  They can spend lots of money and start arresting everyone.  The growers, the users and the dispensaries. This destroys lives and causes a lot of pain.  It's mildly unpopular, and plenty of complaints get served up.

They can leave the people alone and start arresting state governments who are the ones that allow federal laws to be broken.  This isn't such a bad idea and many state governments are corrupt to start and should already be behind bars.  How deep can they go?  Governors, State legislators, city, county, and state officers.  Law enforcement.

Then there's this thing called the drug war. Again, they've been going after a bunch of Bin Ladens.  The people who buy, sell and smoke pot.  This is done on the state level.  Millions have been imprisoned over it.  Billions have been spent to hunt these criminals down filling the courts, jails and prisons with people who's crimes were nothing more that using a drug.

The problem is getting worse. The money is feeding gangs and cartels.  Not just the ones in Mexico, but the ones in Alaska, California, Illinois.  The money is being used to arm every street thug in the gang or cartel.  The people use these guns to protect territory, to kill competitors, and so many times, the innocent bystander, sometimes in their own homes, by a stray bullet.

The heart of the problem is the drugs status and classification.  As a schedule 1 drug it's grouped with other drugs like LSD, Heroin.  The best way for the Federal Government to handle this problem was quickly and swiftly.  Instead they sat on their hands and allowed the problem to grow out of control. 

If they had changed the schedule when the 1st medical marijuana laws were created, the drug would have forever been a prescription medication.  Today 2 states now have laws that allow for use recreationally.  Laws that allow the states to collect taxes. This is where the federal government can win this war.

As long as the blackmarket profits from the drugs sale, the war rages on producing victim after victim. The two state with new laws legalizing marijuana are about to take most if not all of the blackmarket funds out of the hands of dangerous criminals in their states and put that money back into the states economy and infrastructure.

This war can be won by rescheduling the drug and allowing states to collect taxes on the drug.  This will remove most of the money from blackmarket marijuana sales from the criminal coffers and put it back into the coffers of the people.  There's more than the cash and taxes from sales.  Savings include less laws enforcement and incarceration costs.

It's time for the federal government to act.

I am a proponent.  I used to smoke pot daily, I used to grow my own, but have recently stopped using to focus on my real addiction.  Travel.