[420 Girl]

As we've reported recently, public support for re-legalizing marijuana is growing at lightning speed.

A new poll by Angus Reid Public Opinion, conducted December 3 and 4, finds that fully 53% of Americans now favor re-legalization. Only 43 per cent are opposed. Four percent were not sure.

Marijuana was outlawed by the federal government in 1937, after a lurid campaign of outright lies and unscientific nonsense. Ironically, this was just a few years after the repeal of the disastrous experiment of alcohol Prohibition. (Government never seems to learn.)

Why is legalizing marijuana so important to the cause of liberty? Few people realize that marijuana is today the major focus of the War on Drugs. A 2005 study by the Sentencing Project, a liberal Washington-based think tank, found that almost half of Drug War arrests were for marijuana, and most of those arrested were just casual users. A huge percentage of Drug War activity and spending goes towards marijuana prohibition.

The War on Drugs, in turn, has been responsible for a massive erosion of fundamental Bill of Rights liberties. As retired judge and Drug War critic James P. Gray has said: "Drug Prohibition has resulted in a greater loss of civil liberties than anything else in the history of our country."

Legalizing marijuana will end much of the Drug War. And that is good news for liberty.

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