Marijuana is harmless and is safer to use long-term than alcohol or tobacco.

RebuttalsI would first like to remind pro once more that this is a debate on the topic off the effects of recreational marijuana, as opposed to medical. If we were debating the medical sides of these drugs, I would argue that alcohol is good for one's health because it can kill bacteria when rubbed on the skin. "My opponent's argument here is, in it's entirety, an Ad Populum fallacy. The fact that more people smoke it is irrelevant: that's not the medically advised way of administering the drug"While I would argue that this is not simply Ad Populum, but that arguing against this is simply burying one's head in the sand, I'm not going to dwell on this. I will however, repeat, that there is no "medically advised" way of administering this drug. Because there are so few dispensaries, there are no laws yet as to how the marijuana is dispensed. In fact, almost all dispensaries are supplied by small local grow-ops, with no consistency in product from one dispensary to the next. Furthermore, doctors are prescribing the smoking of marijuana as much as the ingesting and the majority of product sold from dispensaries is in smoking form. "Just because the majority of recreational marijuana users smoke the drug, does not make Marijuana inherently harmful rather than the people who choose to smoke it themselves. "I am not going to senselessly argue that just because the majority of tobacco smokers smoke the drug, it doesn't make it inherently harmful for those of us who enjoy rubbing it on our skin. "To assume that it's smoked version is equivalent to itself and thus makes the herb harmful would be equivalent to assuming that Tylenol is harmful because some people take massive amounts of it and OD. "This is not equivalent because smoking marijuana versus eating it is very different than moderately using tylenol versus over-dosing on it. "even entirely pro-marijuana groups [3] that regulate the sale of medical marijuana say that the edible form wields little health risks whilst the ill-recommended smoking form does. "What I am looking for is a doctor who is specifically telling medical marijuana patients not to smoke it, not a pro-marijuana group because I seriously doubt their medical credentials. Just because a pro-marijuana group advised it, does not make it the medically advised way. "Tobacco is only consumable in one fashion: smoking, unlike marijuana. The smoke inhalation is proven to have an adverse effect on the lungs and brain. "False, tobacco is also widely consumed in the form of "chew" or "dip" in which the user puts it in their lip or cheek. This is a way of consuming tobacco that has no effect on the lungs, however I am not denying that tobacco does cause lung cancer just because it does not need to be smoked, while you are making this argument with marijuana. "Much like tobacco, there is no medically advised usage of alcohol in it's recreational form"This is untrue. Moderate recreational use of alcohol actually lowers risk of cardiovascular disease, lengthens average lifespan, decreases chances of developing dementia and lowers the risk of diabetes. [1] [2] While there are some health benefits to alcohol, I am not claiming that it is not harmful in many other ways. "The study in question, despite my opponent's claims, does directly cite an adverse effect on the nucleus accumbens in animals, and cites the results of these studies as having leeway in the basis of the motivational purpose of their hypothesis. "As I have mentioned, the brains of animals and humans and the things that harm them are very similar and much of what we know about the negative effects of substances comes from studies on animals. Furthermore, the study states:"These observations also demonstrate that fundamental relationships observed in covariance analyses among structural measures of controls are absent in marijuana users, suggesting that marijuana use may be associated with a disruption of neural organization in the a priori regions of the nucleus accumbens and amygdala. " It speaks directly of the effects on marijuana users, which are typically human as animals don't smoke weed. "Additionally, whilst it was found that there was an increase in grey matter density in the nucleus accumbens, it was never proven that this can be directly correlated to on-balance harmful results or mental disease. My opponent has gone to a major stretch in correlating changed grey matter density to schizophrenia - the density change was not even relatively significant compared to changes associated with negative mental diseases like schizophrenia (which is scarcely mentioned in the study) as alleged. "I should point out to you this point in the study, which directly correlates the changes of the brain of schizophrenics to those of marijuana users. "subcortical structural alterations have been reported in thalami of patients with schizophrenia (Harms et al. , 2007; Kang et al. , 2008; Coscia et al. , 2009; Harms et al. , 2010), obsessive-compulsive disorders (Kang et al. , 2008), Parkinson’s disease (McKeown et al. , 2008), and Tourette’s syndrome (Wang et al. , 2007). Subcortical surface alterations may be more sensitive to the effects of cannabis than total volumes. " "This argument does not even take a jab at attempting to prove why the effects of marijuana used in it's proper form are naturally negative, as they can include pain relief, calming of seizures, and relief of stress. "These are medical uses of all these drugs, which we are not arguing. Alcohol can also temporarily relieve pain and stress. "My opponent alleges that the effects of dangerous substances like alcohol and tobacco are "just temporary" and "out of the system within 24 hours" - this is untrue. "What I was referring to was the fact that if someone who had never done any drugs were to have a few drinks, smoke a cigarette, or smoke a joint, the effects of both the cigarette and alcohol would be worn off in a matter of hours whereas the negative effects of the marijuana would last up to month, even if it were the first time. I was not referring the long term use of any of these drugs. I believe I have won this debate because I have successfully proved that recreational marijuana compared to similar amounts of recreational alcohol or recreational tobacco is more harmful overall to the human body. My opponent has not been able to directly counter my points, but has rather brought up the "medical standard" several times and skirted around my arguments. I believe I deserve the vote because my opponent didn't do sufficient research on this topic and I have clearly won. This concludes my contributions in the debate. I would like to thank Daltonian for an excellent debate. Sources:[1] . http://www.medicaldaily.com...[2] . http://www.dailymail.co.uk...