Originally Posted by netdog
Pot is still illegal because any elected official that tries to get it legalized in Washington is committing political suicide and he knows it.
It's all in education.
You guys have seen Reefer Madness, it was in it's day a "documentary" type presentation. And it wasn't even the tip of the iceberg. There was a huge propaganda campaign that actually convinced most people of the time that pot made you a raving phsycho, sex fiend, mass murderer and it was dangerous. They even threw in the race card and said it made blacks insane and had to be outlawed.
That's what the post WWII generation was indoctrinated with for decades. I'm old enough to have lived in the tail end of those times, but young enough to have laughed it off.
But the people who vote most consistently, who decide most elections are the folks older than me that sincerely believe pot is evil. My own parents did, they are in their 80's. They have since come around and realized it's nothing like they were told and both even though they don't like pot agree it should be legal.
Pot will only be legalized when that generation dies off and the Vietnam war era folks are the 80 year olds and in charge and voting.
Even then it will be hard to get a politician to risk his career trying to get it legalized in congress. There's simply nothing in it for him but loss of votes, no reason to try.
If a politician thought that legalizing pot would gain him more votes, he would try to get it done, or at least promise he would during a campaign.
If all pot smokers made it clear somehow that they would get out and vote for pro pot politicians, meaning money and lobbying.