Legalization of marijuana for medical or recreational uses (for anyone over age 18)

Well in any case, we both have to prove our assertions. Where does burden of proof come in? We both need to prove our points. To use as examples i will use the states Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska to help prove my point, as these states all have legalized marijuana. I will tell of some of the benefits of legalizing marijuana. The first points are that legalization of marijuana creates both jobs and brings in a huge amount of money for the government. First i will use Colorado. In January 2014, the state of Colorado began to sell marijuana legally. An article from that time by CornellCurrent.com states this, "Of the $3.5 million in tax revenue, medical marijuana generated $1.4 million and recreational marijuana generated $2.1 million." Keep in mind this is only in the month of January 2014. So what this easily makes clear is that legalizing marijuana is profitable for any state in tax revenue, albeit some more than others. Colorado is a great example of this, it shows the income marijuana can bring in, keeping in mind Colorado only had a population of approximately 5.356 million at the time, while the United States as a whole has a population of over 300 million, meaning the total net sales from legalization of marijuana could be much higher than 100 billion according to many studies. (Although the range does range all the way from 10 billion to 120 billion in total net sales) First article I used: http://www.cornellcurrent.com... One of the studies I mentioned: http://abcnews.go.com... The next point is the jobs legalization of marijuana creates, this is really simple. Legalizing pot creates a lot of jobs, again Colorado is a clear example of this. Colorado created approximately 10,000 jobs all from legalizing medical and recreational marijuana. Keeping in mind Colorado has only about 5 million people, all across the U.S the creation of jobs would be much greater. While I am unsure of this I do know Colorado has roughly 1/60 of the U.S population. 10000 times 60 is 600000, if the trend that happened in Colorado continued, than it would have the potential to generate 600000 jobs across the U.S, simply by legalizing it. One source. http://naturalsociety.com... While I know that many speculate that legalization of marijuana would lead to an increase in crime rates, again the experiment done in Colorado proves that legalization actually has the opposite effect. According to a study done by the Drug Policy Alliance since Colorado began its sales of marijuana on January 1, 2014, in the first 11 months of sales violent crime fell 2.2% when compared to the rate that there had been in 2013. Their capital, Denver, actually had an even more substantial decrease where crime decreased by 9.5% overall. Property crime specifically decreased by 8.9%. Furthermore, the arrests for marijuana possession have been dropping since 2010, and have now dropped by 84% since then. Source: http://www.commondreams.org... Next point, legalization could actually deter youths away from abuse of the drug. As out of the sales between January 2014 and October 2014, $9 billion of the revenue was set aside specifically for some youth drug use and education programs. This shows that it is quite likely that youths could be deterred away from marijuana. This information was taken from the same source as the last one. Another belief is that having marijuana illegal almost completely stops circulation of the drug, which is false, as people continue to smoke marijuana in spite of the laws against it, and the ineffective War on Drugs taking place in the U.S. Also failing to curb use access. With it legal, marijuana could also be standardized, regulated, and tested. This means that with product testing a standard for legalized marijuana markets consumers can be better informed about the potency of the marijuana they are consuming, meaning that without having to buy it from drug cartels or the black market, they can understand better what the power of it is to their mind or body. Source:http://www.drugpolicy.org... I will only say one more argument for this round, the majority of people want it to be legal. In an article by CivicScience, they show that 58% of the people they polled support legalization of marijuana, while 35% oppose it, and 7% do not have a strong opinion. This is quite a difference of 23 percentage points between those who support legalization and do not, with legalization winning. If the majority of people want marijuana to be legalized, I do believe along with the other evidenc of it benefits that it should be legal. Poll info-453,653 adults polled, and was done in a span of about two years, from 11/12/2012/ to 08/08/2014. Source: http://civicscience.com... Wait I will put in one more argument, alcohol is actually both more addictive and dangerous than marijuana. An article done by planet deadly ranks the top 10 most dangerous drugs. In this list, alcohol comes in at 4, and tobacco comes in at 5, marijuana... not even in the list http://www.planetdeadly.com... But there are more lists A study shown on Elite Daily does not have alcohol on its list, but also does not have marijuana. http://elitedaily.com... An article done by boldsky is different from most others as it actually does have marijuana at the ten spot, as they say prolonged use can lead to anxiety. However this list also has alcohol way ahead of it, ranking in at the 5 spot. http://www.boldsky.com... The best evidence showing that actually both alcohol and tobacco are more deadly than marijuana is done in article by brobile using data from 2013 showing the amount of kills in the U.S of six different substances. Marijuana comes in with... 0 deaths, yes marijuana killed no people in the U.S in 2013. Heroin killed 8,257. Cocaine killed 4,944 Opioid painkillers killed 16,235. Ready alcohol killed 29,001 confirmed deaths in the U.S in 2013, compared to marijuana's 0. But tobacco is the most shocking I think. Tobacco killed 437,400 KILLED IN THE U.S BY TOBACCO IN 2013. All this pretty much goes to show that both alcohol and tobacco are actually far more dangerous than marijuana. If you are for keeping marijuana outlawed on the grounds of its danger, you should definitely be against banning both of these as well. Source: http://brobible.com...