Cannabis (marijuana) has many medical benefits the general public needs to know about. Not one person has ever died from using cannabis.
In the War on Drugs, a lot of tax money is being wasted in keeping the jails full, the prosecutors with steady employment as well as judges, police and other people associated with the criminal justice system. Of course, these are among the people who want to keep the War on Drugs on-going.
Because of the War on Drugs, the U.S. prison numbers are six to ten times as high as most Western European nations. The United States is a close second only to Russia in its rate of incarceration per 100,000. If the prison and jail issue were corrected, we wouldn't need to build new ones.
The drug war is an artificial escape from reality. The real problem is social injustice, unemployment, family disintegration, low self-esteem. These problems are addressable, and to survive and prosper we must address them. But we won't unless we first give up our morbid fascination with drugs.