Why Should Marijuana be Illegal?

Type the title into Google and prepare to be underwhelmed.

In fact, there was so few search results with content on why marijuana should be illegal, I half expected Google to come back with Did you mean: why marijuana should be legal?

I intend to start a mini-series of posts on why marijuana should be illegal. I'll get into the statistics and explore hypotheticals, but first let me lay down a foundation for my analysis and commentary. In my mind, the most obvious question which must be addressed is "why should any activity be illegal?"

Nearly every law is justified by claiming that the activity either causes (or risks) harm to the participant or to others (non-participants). This harm can be physical, monetary, or emotional. I'll address all three in subsequent posts. As we'll see, drug legislation is full of contradictions, so how do we find out what is dank and what is swag? Stay tuned!