legalizing marijuana

In this debate, PRO has not rebutted the claim that people will do illegal drugs for the sake of doing illegal drug, and as a result people will do harder and more dangerous drugs then marijuana if it were legalized. In fact PRO responded with “that is true”. As CON, I have fulfilled my burden of proof, since people doing more harmful drugs in society is worse than people doing a less harmful drug in society, and therefore marijuana should remain illegal. Dropped Arguments:As stated earlier, PRO dropped my argument that people will turn to harder drugs for the sake of doing illegal activities. Furthermore, I have rebutted his previous claim that drug prohibition increases crime, in which PRO has not responded. In fact, PRO’s second round is exclusively new arguments. Which I shall address now. Taxation of marijuana:PRO states that legalization of marijuana will be beneficial to the government since it can gain tax revenues from it. However, there are a few problems with this theory:a) Why pay excessive money for marijuana, if you can grow marijuana cheaply? Marijuana is easy to grow, so if taxes are too high on marijuana, then a person can easily avoid the tax by growing the weed him or herself. Therefore, the amount of tax revenue that one can generate on marijuana is low. b) Plenty of other ways to generate tax revenue or cut spendingThe reason why Californians have a debt problem is obvious. It is not because they have exhausted their forms of generating tax revenue or that are no areas in the budget that can be cut. No, it is because people want many benefits from the government and do not want to pay for the benefits at the same time. That is the reason why California has a debt problem. Other states do not have the problem that California has, despite the fact that marijuana is illegal there[1]:Many other taxable items besides marijuana exist and other areas of the budget can be cut to solve the debt problem. However, stating that “taxing marijuana” is the solution is inane. Crime and Economics:First, PRO states that many people are incarcerated for marijuana use, and if marijuana were legal, then it would benefit the economy since less valuable resources would be used to incarcerate others. PRO does not source his statistics, but from the data I found 41,000[2] people are incarcerated for marijuana charges while 2,266,800 people are incarcerated[3], so only 1.8% of people are actually incarcerated for marijuana, a very small percentage of the prison population. Furthermore, in my first round I stated that people will do illegal drugs for the sake of doing illegal drugs, so the prison population should not change, since the ex-marijuana users will move onto harder drugs. Furthermore, there is actually an economic benefit to illegalizing marijuana, since those who are caught doing marijuana are usually not charged with jail time, but insead charged with community service, which has a net benefit on society. Medical Benefits of Marijuana:Next, PRO states that marijuana has a medical benefit since it can help people with nausea. As a marijuana user myself, I find the idea that marijuana is useful medically is absurd. I’ve never felt that marijuana had any pain-relieving or nausea-relieving remedies. In fact, going through a bad trip, I’ve had the opposite experiences. Furthermore, there are plenty of nausea reducing [4] and pain relieving medication out there. The medical benefits of marijuana have been exaggerated by advocates. Next, PRO goes on to say that marijuana is not that harmful. As I stated earlier, I agree with that. However, PRO is not arguing whether marijuana is a harmful drug or not. PRO is arguing whether society benefits from the legalization or illegalization of the drug. My analysis above shows that the harmlessness of marijuana is a good thing, since teens will stick to an illegal drug of choice that is harmless rather than do an illegal drug that is harmful. . http://www.taxfoundation.org...[1]http://www.nowpublic.com...[1]http://en.wikipedia.org...[2]http://www.drugs.com...[3]