People spend endless amounts of money on prescription pills.

What would happen if the general public realized you can eat/smoke this simple plant to ease your pain, nausea, insomnia, depression, anxiety, etc? Instead of paying hundreds of dollars a month to pharmaceutical companies an individual could just grow a couple marijuana plants.

Obviously there is a need for medicine. I am not saying we should replace penicillin with weed.

I generally agree with your statement. Marijuana is only still illegal because of major pharmaceutical, corporate, and political interests. Although, weed is a completely different story than cocaine.