The debate about legalizing marijuana is beginning in earnest. It is a debate about individual rights, criminal justice, medicine and economics. It is also a debate where a lot of money is at stake. There are people who stand to lose a lot if the prisons are not full and if new ones are not being built. Those who have profited from the prison-industrial complex will fight hard to ensure that marijuana remains illegal because they know that legalizing it is the first step towards a drug policy that is more rational and humane, although less profitable for them.