The editorial "Reefer madness: End prohibition" (July 12 and TribLIVE.com) advocating "flat-out federal legalization, taxation and regulation" of marijuana needed to take into account more facts before jumping to this conclusion.

Statistics prove the rate of past-30-days use of marijuana by Americans age 12 or older in 1979 was 13.2 percent. In 2008, that figure stood at 6.1 percent. This 54-percent reduction in marijuana use over that 29-year period is not a failure. Activists fail to recognize that the greatest costs of marijuana are not related to its prohibition, but result from marijuana use itself.

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