Legalization of marijuana

I'm very excited to debate this topic with you con. Marijuana has been a very interesting subject to me for a long time now. I always find it's effects being misrepresented and I can't really help but feel like I should try to clear the air. I'll be fighting for legalization of all forms of cannibis; consisting of medicinal, recreational, and industrial use of the drug. I'll begin by going over some commonly known myths and why they are more or less disingenuis.Marijuana is not a comfirmed gateway drugThis is an often told myth stated as fact in arguments against cannibis and it's many products. The group using evidence behind supporting this claim are rather presumptiuous of an experiments results however. In several studies, numbers have been known to show that individuals who use marijuana are likely to move on to harder drugs later in their life. This does not conclude that marijuana is the root though. Even with a higher rate among marijuana users, Cannibis is not known to contain any chemicals that would involve the increased devotion to finding and using harder drugs. All the way back in 1999, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences wrote against the gateway theory saying:"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)On top of that, the World Health Organization suggested that the gateway effect may come from prohibition rather than cannibis influence because "exposure to other drugs when purchasing cannabis on the black-market, increases the opportunity to use other illicit drugs."(2). This does not negate the effects found during cannibis studies, but it does warn that propositions that state evidence as proof of a gateway theory are likely drawing from a case that expects correlation to mean causation.Marijuana is not wholly harmfulCannibis is often mistakenly linked to several ailments that are often overestimated or incorrectly represented. To save space on charecters for further arguements, i'll make a listing of positive and negative affects and list their information accordingly:Negative Short term effects: Increased heart rate, decreased blood pressure, distorted perception, loss of coordination, and short term memory loss. They are all often felt after marijuana is smoked. The heart pumps at accelerated rates above the normal rate, but it is not harmful for those who do not have some degree of coronary artery or cerebrovascular disease. The same goes for blood pressure. (3) Distorted perception and loss of coordination are both dependent on the dosage and usually remains for one to two hours after initial use. (4) Short term memory loss is often has a lasting impression and remains for as long as the person continues to smoke. The degree at which it affects the person is dependent on the dosage. Most individuals who show signs will eventually return to normal within 28 days of last use. (5) Long term effects: cancer and lower immune system. These would be felt well into chronic use of marijuana. Cancer has been denounced by a number of studies. In a recent study done on frequent users of marijuana, both heavy and long term use, showed that there was no strong enough trends to be evidenced by a detectable margin. (7) Lowered immune systems have also been disputed by several reports about the legitimacy of the claims. Clinical studies have been known to use incredibly high concentrations of the drug to pruduce immunosupression. Under normal conditions, the sample sizes are relatively small. (8) Addiction: It is often misrepresented, but marijuana is potentially addictive. When using the drug, it retains it's rewarding feeling by heavily stimulating the cannabinoid receptor system and Opioid receptors in the brain. While it does effectively do the same sort of stimulation as several hard drugs, it is not of the same danger as more potent drugs on a chemical level. (9) Withdrawal: Attempting to drop the drug after lengthy use actaully has it's own set of issues. Common symptoms can be Anxiety, reduced appetite, irritability, and sleep difficulties. The length of time that withdrawal is felt for cannibis is fairly small in comparisan to other drugs. The period can be as short as one to two weeks before the desire to smoke dwindles. The process is not life threatening, but experiences will differ in length and intensity from person to person. (10) Positive Treats Migraines: THC just so happens to be a very potent pain reducer. With marijuana, patients can releive uncomfortably harsh migraines with the pain reducing and anti-inflammatory actions inside their bodies. (11) Slows Alzheimers: THC comes in handy when reducing the speed of amyloid plaque formation in the body. THC inhibits the plaques ability to interfere with the peripheral amionic site of AChE, keeping the areas involved in amyloidgenisis buffered from aggression and accomplishes it for a lower cost that what is currently available. (12) Prevents blindness from glaucoma: Due to increased fluid pressure, the optic nerve takes progressive damage until the vision to the eye is eventually lost. Marijuana has the ability to reduce pressure and could be capable of being an effective glaucoma treatment. Their is however, better medicine on the market that is more capable than it's cannibis counterpart. Further investigation would be needed to test if it could have potential advantages above other treatments. (13) Treats inflammatory bowel diseases: By activating the cannabinoid receptors, marijuana can generate drastic changes within the body that target intestinal permeability. It can decrease inflammation, gastric acid, secretion, emesis, and intestinal mobility. (14) Availability does not increase use in childrenWhile it may seem like something that would obviously enlarge when you create a legal system to buy the product, there is actaully no study proving that having the drug legal would increase teen or adolescent use. Many theories of increased use come from the same kind of arguement in my first point. Number of teen use in states where marijuana aresomewhat higher, but they have not been proven to increase. On the topic, the statistics website procon.org made a note of this under one of its graph on teen montly use:"The lack of an increase in teen marijuana use in states that legalized medical marijuana appears to disprove the argument that legalizing medical marijuana would lead to increased teen use of marijuana for recreational purposes. The cause of the decrease in teen use, however, cannot be determined without additional information and statistical analysis."This will illustrate, for at least the information regarding teen use, may not accurately tell that it's example represents a full fledged trend. (15)I'll ellaborate more on economic effects of marijuana on my next list of arguements. Sorry to hold it up for so long.Sources:(1) http://healthland.time.com... (2) http://www.mpp.org...(3) http://healthland.time.com...(4) http://www.nhtsa.gov...(5) http://www.bostonmagazine.com...(6)(7) http://cebp.aacrjournals.org...(8) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...(9) http://www.psychologytoday.com...(10) http://adai.uw.edu...(11) http://www.psychologytoday.com...(12) http://pubs.acs.org...(13) http://www.nei.nih.gov...(14) http://jpet.aspetjournals.org...(15) http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org...