Imagine going to prison for 55 years. By the time you had paid your debt to society, you would be old and had your life stolen away, if you had not already died behind bars.

What single crime would deserve such a grave punishment? Hijacking an airplane warrants a maximum sentence of 25 years. The maximum sentence for beating a person to death in a fight is 13 years. Had you raped a child, you could expect no more than 11 years behind bars. So what single crime deserves 55 years? The crime of selling a plant people might smoke.

Weldon Angelos, a 25-year-old first-time offender, was recently sentenced to more time for selling pot than if he had received the maximum sentence for beating someone to death while hijacking a plane and raping a child all at once. Now he will likely spend every year of his life behind bars and be buried in a prison graveyard for no worse crime than selling the flowers of a plant.

Unfortunately, his story is not unique. More people are arrested for marijuana offenses than for all violent crimes combined — 88 percent of them for possession only. Every year, thousands of students lose their federal college money when they are prosecuted for petty marijuana offenses. It is a process that ruins lives and wastes billions in taxpayer resources.

For all the hype that comes from the $500 million taxpayer ripoff known as the Office of National Drug Control Policy, cannabis does not even come close to the damage done by legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco.

In 1994 the National Institute on Drug Abuse published a study that listed alcohol and tobacco as comparable to heroin and cocaine in terms of withdrawal and dependence. The same study found marijuana to be less addictive than caffeine. As of 2000, 520,000 people lost their lives annually as a result of alcohol and tobacco, but a 1988 study by the U.S. Drug Abuse Warning Network was unable to find a single instance in which marijuana was the sole cause of death.

Because of its prohibition, the price of cannabis is artificially inflated, making it literally worth its weight in gold at roughly $350 per ounce for quality pot. If cannabis were legal, however, it would barely be worth more than lettuce, thus making it too cheap for any criminal to want to get involved with it. By legalizing marijuana, we would effectively eliminate funding the gangs and pushers that use it as a cash commodity for guns and harder drugs. Legalization would put the pushers out of business overnight. Cannabis should be taxed and regulated in a manner similar to alcohol and tobacco and available for the medicinal and recreational use of responsible adults.

Legalizing marijuana would also decrease user crossover to harder drugs. In countries where cannabis is legal, only 20 percent of users say they can get harder drugs from their marijuana vendor as opposed to 80 percent who say they can do the same in the United States. Legalization would then break the “gateway effect” that drug warriors often tout as a reason for continued criminalization of marijuana.

This is not an issue solely for marijuana users but for us all. Organizations like the Marijuana Policy Project, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and the Libertarian Party are working to end the prohibition on marijuana. Smokers and non-smokers alike can agree the government should not be allowed authority over what we put into our bodies, so long as we do not harm others. Together, we can change these ridiculous laws that do more harm then the drugs they criminalise and allow people who responsibly use marijuana to do so without the threat of criminal prosecution.

Regardless of what the ONDCP may say, America can handle personal responsibility. America can handle legalizing marijuana.