Recreational cannabis should be illegal.

I would like to refute and touch upon a few of your statements if I may. You begin your first argument by saying- "Yes, cannabis can cause mental deficiencies among some parts of the population. This if the person has been regularly abusing marijuana since childhood, or to those who have a specific variant of the AKT 1 gene." Then you sum up your first argument by saying- "So if your genes aren't retarded, you are okay. You can smoke weed if you aren't a weird mutant." Cannabis will negatively affect people with underlying mental disorders, which is a surprisingly high percentage of the population. As well as people who smoke while in their teenage years, because it's a critical time for their brain development. it also affects people with the AK 1 gene. According to recent estimates, approximately 20 percent of Americans, or about one in five people over the age of 18, suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. This means the total number of Americans who will suffer mental disorders from smoking cannabis, such as depression, anxiety and psychosis are very high. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... -Source showing how many Americans have underlying mental disorders. Knowing that 1 in 5 Americans could develop a form of mental disorder due to their underlying condition and cannabis, could we really justify legalising it? I fail to see any positive effects on mental health. Legalising cannabis will make it easily accessible to children and teenagers. They could steal it from their parents or ask a stranger to buy some for them, in exchange for half the amount ( I used to do this with cigarettes. When I was under age) Knowing that cannabis has a major impact on the development of teenage brains, we simply can not risk having an epidemic of anxiety and depression, amongst other mental disorders caused by cannabis. I would ask my opponent to provide mental benefits for cannabis, as that's what I've failed to find. You state- "Also Canada has legalized pot and there is nothing wrong with them and everyone likes them. Be like Canada my friend." Canada has not legalised cannabis recreationally. Canada have only legalised it medically. however, the medical benefits of cannabis are still in question and if such benefits do exist, they have not been fully recognised by science. Instead many medical professionals claim the "benefits" are just a placebo effect. Some scientists say it has medical benefits on pain relief, nausea and headaches. Why then, do doctors not offer you a vape full of cannabis? Because all research seems to vary from person to person, indicating a placebo affect. Despite this, I have no problem with cannabis being used for medical purposes, as it's a great way to research the drug. Certain groups in Canada hope to push for full legalisation by spring 2017, but this will violate many global treaties, so I'm doubtful that will even happen. My point is simply- Canada has not legalised recreational use. http://www.cbc.ca... -Source showing that Canada has not legalised recreation use of cannabis. Conclusion. Cannabis is a hallucinogenic, which means it's a psychoactive agent which can cause hallucinations, perceptual anomalies, and other substantial subjective changes in thoughts, emotion, and consciousness. The common types of hallucinogens are psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants. I don't think children should have easy access to a hallucinogenic and I don't think we should risk many people developing anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, psychosis and many more mental disorders, simply because some people want to push for legalisation and then get high and lounge about all day playing video games. We can not control the strains of cannabis, they will keep getting more potent as the demand for a better high grows. Stronger cannabis means a stronger and more diverse development of mental disorders. Get high on life, not on cannabis.