Remember when Biden promised to pardoned everyone arrested for simple marijuana possession by federal police? It took two years, but it finally came into effect this year.
A few weeks ago the Biden Administration finally started considering changing pot to something other than a schedule three drug, sort of.

Ohio appears almost certain to legalize this year, and Florida is likely to follow.
And how can we forget that legalization has harmed the profit margins of mexican drug cartels.
This is all good stuff, but let's also not overlook the negatives.

Remember when all of the tax revenue from legalization was going to our schools and drug treatment centers? It certainly was a good plan, but it wasn't what happened.

When voters legalized cannabis in 2016, they expected the taxes would be invested in communities that were adversely impacted by the war on drugs. Instead, a new report finds that these revenues are actually funding the police.

The report, California Cannabis Tax Revenues: A Windfall for Law Enforcement or An Opportunity for Healing, which was authored by Youth Forward and Getting It Right from the Start, looks at 28 cities across California that collect cannabis-related tax revenue. It turns out that from the time Proposition 64 was passed to fiscal year 2019-20, 23 of the 28 cities analyzed saw double-digit increases in the amount of general-fund money going into their police budgets. Eight of the 28 cities saw their police budgets grow by at least 25 percent. Overall, the average shift in police budgets for these 28 cities was an increase of 19 percent over that three-year period.

One reason for this is that the revenue collected from cannabis in nearly all these cities (the one exception being Shasta Lake) goes into the general fund, where the largest chunk of spending goes toward police departments. Another reason is that a number of cities are directing these tax revenues toward special units focused on cannabis enforcement, setting the stage for a war on drugs 2.0.

Just how ironic is it that instead of funding our schools, that tax revenue is going to th exact same place that benefited from the War on Drugs 1.0, the police.
Even in California, where it is supposedly legal, there are crackdowns on marijuana dispensaries.

Then there are states like Mississippi, a state that voted to legalize medical marijuana, is still cracking down on legal pot dispensaries.

According to Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson, multiple law enforcement agencies assisted with the search on Friday, July 28. He said the owner of the business, Mark Anthony Cash, was found to be in possession of marijuana and alleged THC Edible Gummies not purchased through the State of Mississippi Medical Cannabis Program.

Cash was charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.

But that's not the worst part. The so-called Justice System in Mississippi still thinks that nothing has changed.

The Mississippi Supreme Court voted last week to uphold a life sentence without the possibility of parole for a man who was convicted of possessing less than three ounces of weed. The court voted 6-3 to confirm the penalty for the defendant, Allen Russell, who was sentenced under Mississippi’s habitual offender statute.

“Because the trial judge followed the law to the letter, we affirm,” Justice Robert P. Chamberlin wrote in the majority opinion quoted by the Epoch Times. “The trial judge did not have sentencing discretion in this case.”
...Normally, a conviction on such a charge would carry a sentence of up to three years in prison. But Russell was also charged with being a violent habitual offender, subjecting him to a mandatory life sentence without parole upon conviction.

Lastly there is a problem that extends directly from marijuana's questionable legal status.

The new unit, housed within the Department of Cannabis Control, recently solicited help from law enforcement agencies statewide to investigate cannabis operators who coerce or threaten workers, subject them to hazardous conditions or deny them pay.

The April 13 bulletin, obtained by The Times, said the unit seeks to create a “central repository” of cannabis-related human trafficking investigations.

Its launch followed the December publication of “Dying for Your High,” a Times investigation detailing the plight of cannabis workers who are cheated, threatened with violence or even die because of unsafe working conditions. The newspaper identified abuse allegations against nearly 200 cannabis farms or contractors — half of them licensed by the state— since legalization. It found 35 cannabis workers killed on the job in a five-year span, a toll that has since risen to at least 37.