#tellusatoday: Legalize pot for recreational use?

Voters in Colorado, Washington state and Oregon will consider whether recreational use of marijuana should be legal. We asked our readers on Twitter for their thoughts on the issue. Here are their tweets and some views from Facebook. Comments have been edited for clarity and grammar:

Is allowing people access to unregulated drugs sold by common thugs on street corners making them safer?

If you want to legalize pot, then regulate it, have strict quality controls, tax it and make it illegal for people who test positive to drive.

-- Dale Mark

Marijuana should be legal; it's no more dangerous than alcohol.

-- @WendyTaylorHill

We spend billions of dollars every year on the war on drugs, money to put law breakers in prison or on probation, and still have a huge problem.

So it comes down to making a decision: Do you want to take tax dollars from everyone to try and fight the war on drugs, or do you want to take tax dollars from the people who are going to use drugs anyway?

-- Robert R. McGraw

If they legalize pot, will they release everyone from prison who is there on a possession charge? I hope so.

-- Ian Haywood

It's controversial, but I watched the television documentary "Prohibition" on PBS by Ken Burns. Perhaps legalization would slow down crime.

-- @Goforgreat

I'm for some form of medical pot, but in California it's gotten so silly that just about anybody can get it. Got PMS? Get some pot. Got a headache? Smoke weed. It has to be treated seriously.

-- Dennis Vest

Legalize it. Alcohol is a much worse drug. Prohibition doesn't work. Jails are overcrowded. Money is wasted trying to stop it.

-- @Brenny513

Marijuana impairs judgment. We don't need anymore dumb people in this nation; we have plenty!

-- Aaron Gray

Medicinal use and sale is rampant with duplicitous activity. Legalization allows states to tax and regulate.

-- @mcho19

Why would anybody want to use marijuana? It serves no purpose.

-- Gerald Sarroca

If it keeps our neighbors to the south from killing innocent women and children, I'm for it. Then throw in the cost to our judicial system, and it seems like a win-win.

-- Theodore DeZorzi

I think that legalizing "recreational" marijuana is not justified due to fact that it's laced differently. The product differs per person.

-- @GionniCortez

Legalizing marijuana only for medical reasons is like legalizing alcohol only for antiseptic. You can never keep recreational users out.

-- @RadicalRuss

For more of this conversation, follow @USATOpinion or search #tellusatoday on Twitter.