Marijuana –It's Prohibition is Not About “Getting Stoned”

As a Colorado native and a (very) long time aficionado of the herb, I was thrilled that we became the first state (by one hour) to legalize the recreational use of pot.
For 75 years the listing of Marijuana as a schedule 3 drug has resulted in the incarceration of thousands of otherwise innocent people for possession of a as little as a single joint.

On Election Day, the citizens of both Colorado and Washington made the bold decision to legalize marijuana and manage it with controls similar to alcohol, prompting speculation about Amsterdam-style “drug tourism” and a new round of jokes about Colorado’s official song, Rocky Mountain High.
 
Since the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act that prohibited the production of both cannabis (marijuana) and hemp, a rigorous effort has been made to vilify the two substances. The reasons behind hemp’s inclusion [as a class 1 narcotic] seem to have centered around a conspiracy orchestrated by the combined efforts of Andrew Mellon, Randolph Hearst, and the Du Pont family.
With the invention of celluloid-extracting [processes ]......hemp was thought to be a very cheap substitute for the paper pulp used in the newspaper industry. Hearst felt that this was a threat to his extensive timber holdings. Mellon, who was then Secretary of the Treasury and the wealthiest man in America, had invested heavily in the DuPont’s new synthetic fiber, nylon, and was worried that new hemp fiber derivatives could derail nylon’s popularity.

The prohibition of Marijuana had almost nothing to do with its psycho-active properties, but rather, it was in competition with the financial interest of a few very powerful people. Just as in today's environment, Marijuana threatens the financial interests of a very powerful pharma industry, the cotton industry as well as the old enemies...oh yeah, ...I forgot about another strong opponent of pot legalization, the private prison industry.