Should Marijuana Be Legalized? Majority of Patch Facebook Responders Say Yes

In the wake of a national Patch article on the mainstreaming of marijuana, we went to Facebook and asked Patch readers in Geneva and Batavia how they feel about legalizing the drug.

Somewhat surprisingly, more than a few of you said "yes." But it would be safe to say that there was a "mixed bag" of responses, with strong opinions on both sides of the issue.

Here's what you had to say:

Geneva Patch Facebook

• Scott R. Naylor Yes.
• Doreen Chesley Williams Yes.
• Missy Donovan Yes and tax the hell out of it!
• Thomas Doggett Gets an art studio and now gets all liberal artsy....
• Missy Donovan ahahaha you're funny…I did a paper on this in college of the benefits of legalizing…
• Mike Tellone Jr. Tax it, and stop wasting tax payer's dollars procicuting and imprisoning those who use it.
• Dave Wagner Absolutely not! I think it's very irresponsible to advocate for legalization. Justifying legalization with revenue generation is a shortsighted argument. The potential to make money off something doesn't make it the right thing to do. As for people...
• Chriss Hadley Yes and make room in our prisons for real criminals. Oh, and while I'm ranting on prisons, I'm also against their privatization.
• Michelle Fatigato- Geen Really???? Don't let people smoke cigarettes ANY WHERE, but legalize drugs! Are we really this far fom God & truth in the country?? Lets marry our pets too!!
• James Crowley Yes, and my dog is awesome so I'd marry him too.
• Josh Frey It will be covered under Obamacare...
• Craig Uchiek No that's all we need is a bunch of pot heads driving around. Don't we have enough of drunk drivers. More money for our courts.
• Justin Eggar It is interesting to me that is topic drives more responses than the average post. Remind me to advertise my Scooby Snacks for Quotes program to this crowd.
• Scott Albright Real questions is, "Why should it remain illegal?"
• Angel Bernahl Yes
• Judy Emmons NO !!! We have enough crazy people running around now.
• Scott Albright Dave Wagner, I hear you rail on how bad it would be but you left out any facts to back up your stance?
• Tony Pronenko Yes, and just like Scott Albright said "why is it still illegal? "
• • Sven Kersten Moravec Touchy subject.

Batavia Patch Facebook

• Ben Rottschafer I'm fine with it either way - funny though, .."Schedule I drugs are classified as having a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment, and a lack of accepted safety for use.” - yet Alcohol and Cigarettes are legal. Silly Congress.
• Linda Clay Dameron Yes
• Doug Jobe Yes, but with similar restrictions as Alcohol....
• Brenda White Hell yes
• Wesley H Schmidt No
• Dennis Tousana I'm with you Doug, Why not, the war on drugs is a huge waste of time and money. Legalize it, or at least decriminalize it, tax it. Quit filling up the jails with people who've done nothing wrong but get caught with a small amount of weed.
• Steve Fox Yes but with laws in place like beer and alcohol.
• Mike Cross Yes I do