I'm not "defining words to have whatever meaning". I explicitly agreed with you on the technicality of innocent vs criminal ("Of course"), and brought the conversation back the actual point:
Prihibition is dramatically worse because it imputes criminal charges onto people who are otherwise innocent. This is bad because these people are not a threat to society, yet with prohibition they lose their life to jailtime and a permanent criminal record.
I talking about the original comment I was responding to. You specifically said that it "imputes innocent people as criminals". This implies that they are innocent which they are not.
I never said that it shouldn't be legalized/decriminalized, I'm just objecting to the usage of "innocent" to describe these people.
Fine - you are correct. These people are not "innocent" in the legal sense, in that they are in blatant violation of the law.
However I would then ask if the legal criteria of judging innocence are useful to society. My claim is that they are not, in that we label people as "guilty" and socially disadvantage them, when they may otherwise be perfectly productive members of society. Their use of cannabis in and of itself causes causes comparatively less harm to others, at least relative to harder drugs like alcohol.
Ok, I hear you. But I think my usage is ok. The purpose of prohibition is to apply a criminal status to an otherwise non-criminal. And without that law they are innocent, no? Or how else should we describe the status of said citizens without the existance of prohibition?
Prihibition is dramatically worse because it imputes criminal charges onto people who are otherwise innocent. This is bad because these people are not a threat to society, yet with prohibition they lose their life to jailtime and a permanent criminal record.
I never said they are not illegal right now.