> If you're using Vicodins legal status (requires prescription) as a comparison then pot and cocaine are already legal.

I believe in legalization, but this this is false (in the US at least). Pot is a Schedule I prohibited substance, Cocaine is a Schedule II prescription drug, and Vicodin is Schedule III. Each schedule carries with it a large difference in how available and legal a drug is.

"legal" is a spectrum, and vicodin is much more legal than pot or cocaine are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Substances_Act#Sched...

While that is true on a federal level it is quite a bit different on a state level. In CO for example, pot is very simple to get legally. You can tell a doctor you have head aches, back pain, whatever and quickly get a pot card. When it comes to pot it is legally easier to get than an endless prescription of vicodin. At one point they had 'doctors' onsite at the pot dispensaries, but I think they may have recently changed that part.

You are right that cocaine is more strictly controlled than either of the other substances, but the original point I was making is that you can't use vicodin as an example of a legal substance when it's not freely available.

"f you're using Vicodins legal status (requires prescription) as a comparison then pot and cocaine are already legal."

Right..so why fight for other forms of it then?

Also, it didn't stop people from selling it on the black market (like so many proponents would like you to believe)

It may be legal, but not in the sense that access to it is unrestricted. I can't think of a situation where it is possible for a black market to exist for a legal and unrestricted product.

Not that I'm arguing for or against just enjoying seeing the opinion of other HN readers.

What researchers should do is look at the prevalence of black markets in states where pot is easy to get legally. In CO pot is easier to get legally than anything else other than alcohol or tobacco. I wonder what that has done for COs black market for pot.