In California it really is pretty close to being legal already. It's been decriminalized there for decades. If someone does get caught they get a ticket. They've had medical marijuana there since 1996, and we know anyone can get a medical marijuana card if they want one. But, per capita marijuana use in California is only slightly higher than the national average. Use by those 12 to 17 years of age is actually slightly lower than the national average. There are several states that have not decriminalized and that do not have medical marijuana where per capita use of marijuana is higher. The laws don't have much impact on the percentage of people who will smoke pot.
When we think about laws from the perspective of the science of criminal justice we think about deterrent effect. What influences the level of deterrent effect are things like the severity of the punishment for breaking a law and something most people don't even think about, and that is the level of risk of getting caught by those who contemplate breaking a law. That last one is really the biggie here. The fact is that most pot smokers will never get caught provided they are just a little bit careful. Most all the transactions and use of this drug go on behind closed doors or somewhere where no one but the participants are going to see it. Well over half of all murders will result in an arrest. Probably one in several thousand “pot smokings” result in an arrest, and usually it's because the pot smokers was doing something stupid. We do have something like 700,000 people arrested in this country for simple possession of pot every year, but that only re[presents a very small percentage of pot smokers and I can tell you that from many years of working in the criminal justice system, and I've worked both as a prosecutor and a defense attorney, a lot of these people getting caught are getting caught over and over again, because they are idiots. A lot of them are criminals who are always getting in trouble for something who happen to break the marijuana laws along with all their other law breaking, or they're stupid young people who think it's a good idea to drive around in their cars smoking from three foot bongs or something like that. They're idiots. The vast majority of pot smokers will never get caught, even if they are regular smokers for decades.
People know there is very little likelihood they'll get caught and they know that not much will happen to most of them in the unlikely event that they do get caught. (or at least that's what they think.) And most are young people when they start fooling around with it, young people who feel invincible anyway. Even if they are idiots likely to get caught they don't know that. They know hardly anyone ever gets caught and they think it won't happen to them either.
I truly don't believe that there are many who don't smoke pot just because it is illegal. It's relatively cheap on a per use basis and easily available anywhere. We could hardly make it more available if we tried. It's not that people can't afford it or they can't find it, it's that they don't want to do it. And I think what makes most not want to do it are mostly all the good reasons not to do it that have nothing to do with its legal status. And those few who really want to do it but won't just because it's illegal, they wouldn't be much of a problem for us if we did legalize it. They've already shown that they have some self control by not doing something they really want to do and they've already shown that they are basically law abiding people.
We are stopping precious few people from smoking pot with our laws. What we are doing is wasting an absolute fortune trying to keep up the ban on marijuana. We're causing a rift between law enforcement and a significantly portion of our society. We're causing a situation we're millions of people regularly break the law thus eroding respect for the rule of law in general. We're enriching organized crime to the tune of many billions of dollars a year. Most of what Mexican drug trafficking organizations make is coming from marijuana sales. We're really accomplishing nothing good but we are causing problems too numerous to list. I understand your objections to pot smoking, but it makes no sense to me to have an unenforceable law that is causing way more harm than good.
Let's legalize prostitution, any and all drugs, why not remove all laws that don't involve bodily or economic harm to another person from the perp. The truth is, no one can assure anyone that smoking pot is truly without a victim. We are busy banning smoking tobacco decades after being told it was a victimless pursuit, when in reality, it is not. We all pay escalated health costs associated with lung cancer born from smoking tobacco. And now we find cancer-causing secondhand smoke effects innocents. Marijuana is exempt from harming the lungs? Sure it is, LOL. All this effort to legalize it should ensure positive progression in all societies, right? The ugly truth is that societies that turn their backs on drug use are well below the standard of living level that I or my family want to live in or ever dream to achieve.
The will of the majority should prevail, and those who want to smoke it should move to states whose laws are lax, like mine. We are already at the bottom of the economic ladder having been mismanaged by a corrupt, one-party government, we can't afford to prosecute the lawbreakers, are losing population yearly, so we are busy loosening our laws, trying to attract potheads, as we think they will add substantially to the gene and economic pool. I hear CA is in a similar predicament.