Hungary should create some version of the Dutch example as it pertains to Cannabis policy. I would favor full legalization in certain areas and for businesses that pay a special license. I believe that a country as small as Hungary could finance it's government and social spending entirely off the taxation of legal pot and the tourism that that would bring. That weed could pay for schools, hospitals, old age care and pensions, unemployment comp and free uni!

What Hungary will have to do to make this possible is to give the finger to the US. Get out of the EU and even NATO if you have to. The US stands for nothing more than vicious pimp capitalism and oligarchy. It's the old Ezterhazy system, only modernised. The US has no business bullying a country like Hungary over it's soft drug policy- when the Americans themselves don't care about their own social problems. It is the US that is responsible for spreading and enforcing fanatical and mindless Prohibitionism all over the world. This all comes from fears and repressions in the American psyche, and are none of Hungary's business.

Taxing legal pot can create affluence. Hungary comes too late to the capitalist game to get rich through manufacturing and export- the Chinese are already doing that. The country is too small to live off the export of agriculture and raw materials. That doesn't leave a lot of possibilities, does it?

Long live Hungary! Long live the weed! Down with the US!

I don't see one good reason why pot should be illegal. Sell it to adults the same way as booze and tobacco are sold. Drug dealers will find another job, no one else gets hurt.

Of course if we go to the bottom of the issue, it's really none of the government's business to ban things of personal use. They may choose to provide information about a product they believe can be harmful, as it is done on cigarette packs, and limit the sale to grown ups. Anything more would be a serious violation of our individual rights. It's perfectly legal to purchase and consume a lethal dose of alcohol, but a pocketful of weed makes you a criminal.
I personally don't care for the stuff, I don't like it and don't need it. Most people are capable of making a simple choice for themselves, that's not what governments are paid for. Individual freedom is the most important basic right, and only should be limited when it seriously interferes with the rights of others. Pot is not the problem, the crime and corruption is created by the ban. How simple is that?

I always find it strange that issues of personal freedoms bring the left and right together. We all believe in letting adults make their own decisions.
Laszlo's comments regarding the potential economic benefit are very valid, hemp and it's byproducts were one of the largest global commodities before 1928. Before 1928 hemp was used for making fabric, cord, lubricant and sealent, used in medicine and for animal feed (the seeds are one of only two sources of 'complete' protein available from plants, the other being soya) and some producers were starting to experiment with using the organic compounds from hemp in the production of polymers (plastics). Oh, and some people smoked the unfertilised female flowers to get high too.
Pressure by the US brewing, cotton and petrochemical industries created a climate of hysteria regarding hemp and marijuana in the US that was spread to other parts of the world (through economic treaties and deals). The smear campaign at the time concentrated on the drug aspects of the plant and used fear of black people and jazz music as the cornerstones of the negative propanganda that was produced to intimidate and scare many North Americans (just see Reefer Madness, a 1920's anti-marijuana film for an example of the claptrap produced at the time). It really is time that the world woke up to the fact that it prohibits the growing and use of an extremely beneficial plant because of outdated laws that were passed due to racism rather than reason.