Non Medical Use of Marijuana SHOULD Be Legal in the United States

I'll start with Premises, and then Rebuttals.Premise I: Dangers of Marijuana.Is Marijuana healthy? Few real studies claim so. Most studies that do infact claim there to be health benefits of Marijuana, also list numerous symptoms that greatly out weight the benefits.To start. Marijuana does not kill cancer, or nearly any of the benefits Pro claims. The study her claim comes from says that it helped slow done some cancer cells, although this is concerning, as cancer cells are normally the same as normal cells, but with uncontrolled growth. If Marijuana harms the cancer cell version, it'll harm the healthy variant. Another issue with the study is how badly Pro-Marijuana proponents like Pro will exaggerate and twist the benefit mentioned, while ignoring that the study also lists how Marijuana was found to promote other cancers, if not completely trigger them (1).There is no agreement among studies about the health benefits of Marijuana, aside from the lacking of benefits. There is, however, near complete agreement about the issues Marijuana causes. Including the study saying 3 joints a day is worse than 20 cigarettes (2). Another study linking Marijuana to cancer (3). And about 30 studies linking it to schizophrenia and a study linking it to paranoia, the most counter-productive side-effect for Pro's "less violence and more self-peace" argument (4, 5).That being said. There is simply no case to be made about it being healthy. We can conclude it has major side-effects, and few, if any, benefits. I won't do a Rebuttal for Pro's health cases because that'd be repetitive.1] medscape.com/viewarticle/4119522] http://news.bbc.co.uk...3] http://erj.ersjournals.com...4] http://www.schizophrenia.com...5] http://www.examiner.com...]Premise II: Addiction.Addiction is a major issue when discussing legalization. I'd argue the need to make any addictive AND dangerous product illegal, like cigarettes, but we are on one topic here.Marijuana is heavily addictive. The claim that it isn't is utter bull. Some studies puts it's addictive rate as high as 9% (6). While not as high as Alcohol, that still means that of the 50 people who has viewed this debate as of now, 5 of them would have a critical addiction. The rate of any given addiction is from 10-30%. That means that, of the 50 viewers, a possible 15 will have an addiction. This doesn't specify if this is based on usage amount ( a rate of 10-30% per 5 joints or so on...)The issue here is whether anything that is addictive and dangerous at the same time should be legal. The answer, for short, is no.6] http://www.psychologytoday.com...]Rebuttal I: Uses of Marijuana.Pro's argument is based mainly off the idea that marijuana can be used to make paper and clothes. This is wrong. Marijuana can only be smoked. HEMP is used to make those products. Legalizing hemp production to make cloth doesn't require legalizing it to make drugs. If we compare this to the lumber industry, hemp is the tree, paper is paper, and marijuana is wood. Made from the same thing, but completely different. You do not need to legalize marijuana to legalize hemp paper. Although even if you did, you'd be paying a heavy toll for out-of-date appliances we left behind for a many great reasons. Hemp paper would be heavily expensive and and unwanted, as would hemp cloth (which is like cotton, but uncomfotable). Neither are valuable products in the mordern world.Rebuttal II: Paying Debts.Anyone with economic sense knows that taxes of anything less than a half trillion dollar industry will help pay off state debts. At most, it's believed Marijuana legalization will bring in only $6.2 billion in taxes (1). Once cost of maintaining a successful legalization and enforcing laws regarding it (as legalization =/= free) are included, you will have paid off near to no debt. It may even create more debt.To put it in perspective, Marijuana would increase Government income by 0.001% (2), and pay off about 0.00035% of the Federal Debt (3) alone each year, not including costs of maintaining the legalization.Another issue with Pro's case is the she doesn't understand how Government Debt is paid off. It's not paid off by actually paying it off... The Government pays interest annually on the bonds they use (the Treasurey collects trillions in bonds, and gives the Government the bond money to spend when over their budget). The government pays this for 30 years, and the bond matures and the debt is gone. Earning more money doesn't help pay off the debt, just helps the Government use less bonds, although it will still always take 30 years to pay off the bonds when used. That being understood, no income will help the Government pay it's debts because that's not how Government debt works, and the government is currently do just fine paying it's interest.1] http://www.alternet.org...2] http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com...3] http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us...]Rebuttal III: Misplaced Police Focus.The first of two issues with Pro's argument is that a criminal isn't defined as someone who breaks laws you agree with. The breaking of any law makes you a criminal, whether you agree with it or not. Smoking marijuana will still make you a criminal, regardless of if you think it should be legal, because it is illegal. Ex Post Facto works both ways (especially while it's still illegal). Smoking an illegal drug does, in fact, make you an "ACTUAL criminal(s)."The second issue is that the police aren't one or the other. They don't have 1 police officer who has to focus on you or the murder... They can capture the murderer, thief, rapist, AND illegal drug user at the same time. And when they can't, they have enough time in a day to still get it all done.Rebuttal IV: Conspiracy Theory.Pro's claim that Marijuana is illegal because other industries don't like it is highly unsupportable. First starters, if the Tobacco industry saw the Marijuana industry in such a manner as Pro believes, they would simply start selling Marijuana with their Tobacco.Pro supports none of her cases here, using a far fetched, backdoor excuse.Rebuttal V: Peaceful Nation Theory.Pro has no evidence supporting the idea that Marijuana would help make a better nation. Alcohol can also relax people, but it doesn't make a safer nation. Nor do cigerettes. Pro proposes a slippery sloop here (albeit a positive sloop, still a slippery one) and supports it with nothing but hopes and wishful thinking.Conclusion: Legal Marijuana has no benefits to society, while being both addictive and dangerous. It should, therefore, not be legalized.