Drug Legalization (Marijuana)

Rebuttal 1: Gateway Drug Time magazine has a wonderful article on this which I will link and quote throughout this rebuttal. My opponent claims that marijuana is a gateway drug well yes and no. Imagine this, someone who uses a computer is probably 1000x more likely to become a hacker than someone who never touches a computer. Is it the computers fault that the person took steps and made their OWN choices to go down a worse road? No of course not! The same applies to marijuana. My opponent also states in his Section 1 argument that it is not marijuana but people who choose to go to harder drugs. "It's not the drug itself that causes people to move on to worse drugs but it's the people that can't reach that high that marijuana gives them anymore." Now I will quote some points that are from people/organizations who are quite significantly more intelligent than myself. "Patterns in progression of drug use from adolescence to adulthood are strikingly regular. Because it is the most widely used illicit drug, marijuana is predictably the first illicit drug most people encounter. Not surprisingly, most users of other illicit drugs have used marijuana first. In fact, most drug users begin with alcohol and nicotine before marijuana " usually before they are of legal age. In the sense that marijuana use typically precedes rather than follows initiation of other illicit drug use, it is indeed a "gateway" drug. But because underage smoking and alcohol use typically precede marijuana use, marijuana is not the most common, and is rarely the first, "gateway" to illicit drug use. There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs[1]." The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. "Since then, numerous other studies have failed to support the gateway idea. Every year, the federal government funds two huge surveys on drug use in the population. Over and over they find that the number of people who try marijuana dwarfs that for cocaine or heroin. For example, in 2009, 2.3 million people reported trying pot " compared with 617,000 who tried cocaine and 180,000 who tried heroin[1]." "Holland began liberalizing its marijuana laws in part to close this particular gateway " and indeed now the country has slightly fewer young pot-smokers who move on to harder drugs compared with other nations, including the U.S. A 2010 Rand Institute report titled "What Can We Learn from the Dutch Cannabis Coffeeshop Experience?" found that there was "some evidence" for a "weakened gateway" in The Netherlands, and concluded that the data "clearly challenge any claim that the Dutch have strengthened the gateway to hard drug use."[1]" Rebuttal and 1st argument: Health factors. The argument of marijuana and its effects on the respiratory system can be quite easily fixed and is avoided many times by people who are against legalization. There are many alternatives including; vaporizers, medicated food, and medicated oils, and pills containing marijuana (medicated meaning containing marijuana). The best argument against the argument on the damage to the lungs is a 20 year study and I can sum it up no better than marijuana smokers lungs actually increased in ability after smoking for 20 years crazy thought right? Well apparently not as crazy as you might have thought. "Marijuana does not impair lung function"at least not in the doses inhaled by the majority of users, according to the largest and longest study ever to consider the issue, which was published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association[2]." "Researchers working on a long-term study of risk factors for cardiovascular disease (the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults or CARDIA study) tested the lung function of 5115 young adults over the course of 20 years, starting in 1985 when they were aged 18 to 30[2]." "The study was "well conducted" and is "essentially confirmatory of the findings from several previous studies that have examined the association between marijuana smoking and lung function," says Dr. Donald Tashkin, professor of medicine at UCLA and a leading scientist in the area. He was not associated with the new research. "The major strengths of this study are that it included a far larger number of subjects followed for longer than any of these previous studies," he adds[2]." "While tobacco smokers showed the expected drop in lung function over time, the new research found that marijuana smoke had unexpected and apparently positive effects. Low to moderate users actually showed increased lung capacity compared to non smokers on two tests, known as FEV1 and FVC. FEV1 is the amount of air someone breathes out in the first second after taking the deepest possible breath; FVC is the total volume of air exhaled after the deepest inhalation[2]." "That was a bit of a surprise, says Pletcher, since "There are clearly adverse effects from tobacco use and marijuana smoke has a lot of the same constituents as tobacco smoke does so we thought it might have some of the same harmful effects. It"s a weird effect to see and we couldn't make it go away," he adds, explaining that the researchers used statistical models to look for errors or other factors that could explain the apparent benefit and did not find them[2]." IQ: The link between diminishing IQ scores and pot have been severely challenged against the study that was conducted with just (38) heavy users. "A 2012 Duke University study made international headlines when it purported to find a link between heavy marijuana use and IQ decline among teenagers. Other researchers questioned the findings almost immediately: Columbia University's Carl Hart noted the very small sample of heavy users (38) in the study, leading him to question how generalizable the results were. Then, a follow-up study published 6 months later in the same journal found that the Duke paper failed to account for a number of confounding factors: "Although it would be too strong to say that the results have been discredited, the methodology is flawed and the causal inference drawn from the results premature," it concluded[3]." Coordination, problem solving, thinking, perceptions, and mood are all only during the high as studies are inconclusive on long lasting effects. Now that we have shown that the negatives are not so negative lets look at some benefits of marijuana use. 1.It can be used to treat Glaucoma. 2.It may help reverse the carcinogenic effects of tobacco and improve lung health. 3.It can help control epileptic seizures. 4.It also decreases the symptoms of a severe seizure disorder known as Dravet's Syndrome. 5.A chemical found in marijuana stops cancer from spreading. 6.It may decrease anxiety. 7.THC slows the progression of Alzheimer's disease. 8.The drug eases the pain of multiple sclerosis. 9.Other types of muscle spasms could be helped too. 10.Other types of muscle spasms could be helped too. 11.It lessens side effects from treating hepatitis C and increases treatment effectiveness. 12.Marijuana treats inflammatory bowel diseases. 13.It relieves arthritis discomfort.R32;R32; 14.It keeps you skinny and helps your metabolism. 15.It improves the symptoms of Lupus, an autoimmune disorder. 16.While not really a health benefit, marijuana spurs creativity in the brain. 17.Marijuana might be able to eliminate Crohn's diseases. 18.Pot soothes tremors for people with Parkinson's disease. 19.Marijuana helps veterans suffering from PTSD. 20.Marijuana protects the brain after a stroke. 21.It might protect the brain from concussions and trauma. 22.It can help eliminate nightmares. 23.Weed reduces some of the awful pain and nausea from chemo, and stimulates appetite. 24.Marijuana can help people trying to cut back on drinking. [4] and one of the biggest can you tell me how many recorded death there are from marijuana? 0 would be the correct answer. The benefits greatly outweigh.