>I also believe that Marijuana/hemp/whatever should be kept
>illegal. From an economic point of view, making it illegal
>increases the cost of getting the drugs and the risk
>associated with it, making it far more difficult to obtain.

From the economic point of view, keeping it illegal creates a humongus criminal market, which provides the money base to criminals much worse than pot dealers. Legalizing marijuana would destroy this shadow market, weakening the criminal gangs, providing more taxes to the government, and freeing up police to fight the real bad guys.

>Should the drug be legalized, the price would go down as the
>drug cartels start sending in larger amounts of the drugs
>legally, and demand would go up, resulting in many, many more
>people using drugs.

Once it is legal, you can actually regulate the price. It is now that it is out of control. People generally don't like to break law, so most will be buying pot legally, even if they could get it cheaper if they got it illegally. Keeping the price high shouldn't be much of a problem, just like it is not a problem with alcahol & cigarettes. A bottle of vodka costs $30 because of the alcahol taxes, not because ethanol is expensive (it is dirt-cheap).