Obama is a douche.

Incarcerating pot-smokers grows part of our economy… the part that is the prison industry. It does so at a much greater expense to the rest of society, though, in the tax dollars fed to that unproductive system, and the families broken up and the lives ruined.

As has been mentioned in other forums, his flippancy in answering is a real disservice to the second, more legitimate part of the question - what's being done to save the US money on incarcerating non-violent offenders? Even if legalization is out of the question, universal decriminalization should be given a serious examination.  But President Obama's brush-off attitude towards the question means that we get nowhere. Thanks.