Should marijuana be legalized?

I find it quite absurd that governments are in favour of keeping the current legislation against marijuana. Anyone that has done the research and taken into account the dangers and statistics of this drug compared to others will know exactly what I mean. Every year our country (I'm a uk resident) spends over 350 million dollars on alcohol related abuse and crime and virtually nothing on marijuana abuse. I think half the problem is that a lot of marijuana users also use other drugs and when questioned, after being diagnosed with mental illness, they do not admit to taking the stronger drugs therefore a lot of the blame is put onto cannabis itself.

Alcohol results in thousands of people being hospitalized every single weekend and causes a lot of violence on the streets. People are also not in control of their actions when they are under the influence of alcohol and it is also a deadly legal drug which causes a lot of physical health problems, aswell as mental problems. Compare this to cannabis users who mainly stay in their homes in order to use the drug, become rather chilled out and relaxed and can't be bothered to go out causing trouble. They are generally very happy laid back people and the influence of the drug does not cause them to go out fighting or be loud and obnoxious. The dangers of cannabis abuse also have a significantly smaller amount of effect upon the health of the user as alcohol, which of course, if taken pure is absolutely lethal. I think the government need to take a step back and re-analyze the pure hard facts about the drug instead of relating it to the dangers of stronger drugs just because it is taken in a similar way.