Marijuana Legalization

Sorry this took me so long. You gave me a lot to chew on. Note: I wasn't able to open your links. All that came up was the Google Canada search engine. No pages. Sorry. Contention 1 Rebuttal: Your first contention is fair. Colorado IS making quite of bit of money off the 28% sales tax they put on marijuana. But you brought up the wrong issue. The important issue is what they"re actually doing with the money they"re bringing in. Statistics show that Colorado has amassed $36.5 million in marijuana taxes. But less than 25% of that is actually being used for governmental purposes such as constructing schools. The rest of it, according to the Denver Post, is being fed right back into the marijuana system. Your other two points in this contention seem to say that legalizing marijuana would save money and police time. Let me start by saying that this just isn't true. In Colorado, for example, police law enforcement was actually boosted. This was to ensure that no one would consume marijuana in public places (still illegal) and to keep civic anxiety low. Also, other states such as Oklahoma and Nebraska are dealing with greater law enforcement costs due to the illegal traversing of marijuana into those states. Currently, those states are suing Colorado and are actively working to rule marijuana legalization unconstitutional. Contention 2 Rebuttal: Saying that marijuana isn't as harmful or addictive as Tobacco, Cocaine, Heroin etc. isn't saying much. Simply because it isn't as bad doesn't make it good and it certainly doesn't give a great argument for its legalization. I"d also like to bring up the fact that marijuana is considered a "gateway drug." The CASA completed a study showing that people who used gateway drugs (alcohol and tobacco included), were, at tops, 322 times more likely to end up using cocaine. Almost 90% of people abusing cocaine have used tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana first. Statistically speaking, if we make marijuana legal, the use of these other drugs will explode. We will end up with a more dangerous society than when we began. Contention 3 Rebuttal: Again, I state, law enforcement was increased in these areas. There is still so much about marijuana that is illegal. It"s illegal to consume in public, illegal to take across a state border, and it"s also illegal for people under 21 to buy or consume. The CASA study referred to previously reported that 12.6% of eighth graders, 24.4% of tenth graders, and a staggering 35.3% of twelfth graders use marijuana. John Jackson, the president of the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police said, "There"s a common belief that by legalizing it [marijuana], you will get rid of the black market. I can resoundly say that the black market is alive and doing well." My point is this: Legalizing marijuana would still leave a large subset of the population for whom it would still be illegal. Law enforcement would have just as hard of a time regulating marijuana then as they do now. Contention 4 Rebuttal: I don"t think that would happen. I must again mention the large subset of people for whom marijuana would remain illegal. With marijuana so available, adult dealers could literally go store to store buying an ounce of weed at a time. That"s one option. But dealers don"t have to buy it from the store. There"s still money in the underground business because dealers can keep importing their marijuana the way the always have without having to, "levy 28 percent in state taxes." (John Jackson) Jackson goes on to say that it would actually still be cheaper to buy marijuana from a dealer than from a store. And why would the dealers care if it was still illegal if they made more money? This is why the black market is still alive and doing well. Contention 5 Rebuttal: This contention is a bit off topic. Medicinal marijuana is not illegal. I might also add though, that marijuana hasn't been studied enough yet to fully determine the positive and negative effects of taking it. Final Statement: Remember when cigarettes were cool? Let me ask, what happened to that? How would marijuana be any different? I"ll answer: it wouldn't. It would go in and come out. Then what you would have left is a harmful and potential dangerous drug deeply embedded in the percentage of society affected by it. Basically, when it"s no longer cool, all you've got left is the hard addicts. Is that what we want?