Let's talk about drugs

A friend of mine had a "horticulture experiment" in his 1 bedroom apartment's bedroom closet. He had seven plants which would have yielded between 9-14 ounces total. One night he got real drunk and put a pot on his stove to make some tea. He fell asleep before the tea and woke to the sound of his smoke alarm going off. He was trying to turn off the alarm when the police showed up. They told him to come outside because of the fire. He said there was no fire only a smoldering pot. The cop then walked into the apartment and forced him to leave. The fire department showed up and ventilated the apartment with a large fan. They then did a room to room sweep and discovered his "horticulture project". The cop put him in his cruiser and said that the fire fighters found something, and asked if he cared to comment. My friend stayed silent. This went on for about 2 hours very late at night with rotating officials claiming that he could, "do this the easy way or the hard way". The whole time he remained silent. After several hours they let him go and said they would be in contact in the next few months. That was about 7 weeks ago and he still has no word from them or his lawyer. This guy is in his mid twenties, has a decent job that he works 40hr/wk. He could be facing several years in prison and fines for something that use to grow naturally on almost every continent. The city/county/state tax payers will spend 10's of thousands of dollars to investigate, prosecute, and house him in a prison....not to mention the loss of his wages and productivity at work. This is not the 1st of people I know in trouble, nor will it be the last. This really has gotten out of hand. Police like to bust pot growers/dealers because they are typically less violent and easier to deal with and in turn, justify their ballooning budgets, but at the same time it takes away resources from real issues that they could be dealing with.

From what I understand, a large portion of the world made cannabis illegal due in part because of US trade treaties.