The higher potency of pot in recent times is a cause for concern, but the alternative is to incarcerate even more people than we do already. In addition, the drug trade creates it's own kind of violence. It's just not evident to people who live in nice suburban neighborhoods - not yet anyway.

The fact of the matter is that if there really is a war on drugs, we should have surrendered a long time ago because drugs are winning. You can't have what is essentially a multi-billion dollar per year industry and have any faith in govt being able to control it. We've tried that for decades and it's gotten us nowhere. Time for a different approach.