Marijuana ought to be legalized

I see that you are actually wanting to be convinced instead of having an actual debate, which is fine by me, I just want the voters to keep that in mind as it will change the mentality of my debate. So let us beak down your argument. You make one claim about the legalization of marijuana and you claim that it would not change anything. People would still fight over it, people would still lace it and so on. Maybe you would understand this situation better if I gave you an example. Do you know anything about when alcohol became illegal? That was a fun time in America. Alcohol is infinitely more harmful to the body and mind than marijuana and if this is challenged in your next round I will provide evidence. Alcohol, when it was illegal, was the center of crime in the United States. Crime bosses flourished because so many people still consumed alcohol and the fact of it being illegal had no change in this. The awful thing about making alcohol illegal was it took the government completely out of the equation when it comes to the production and distribution of alcohol, which really made it a lot more dangerous than today when the government actually has limits like no one under 21 can drink, you cannot drink and drive, some bars will cut you off if they think you are somewhat close to overdosing (this is not a good comparison because it is impossible to OD on marijuana). So let's live in a perfect world here. Let's say marijuana is now legal and everyone who is 21 and up can purchase up to an ounce. What does this change? A lot of things that you said would not change. You see, when a product all of a sudden becomes LEGAL after a long period of being ILLEGAL, there will be a flourishing market for it. The only reason why people kill over weed and get laced weed IS BECAUSE CRIMINALS ARE THE ONES DISTRIBUTING IT!! Criminals honestly do not care about you. They are criminals. Of course you might get laced weed, of course you might get killed over a bag of weed. BUT THAT IS BECAUSE IT IS ILLEGAL! If it was legal, the market would be creating and distributing marijuana, not people in Mexico or Columbia. Not only that, but the government is now involved. Do you really think the government is going to allow a legitimate company lacing weed and giving it to their customers without knowing? No, only criminals think of that, and increase the price to make money. So the conclusion of this argument is the legalization of marijuana will actually remove laced weed completely, muscle out the criminals (no reason to have gang wars over something that I can pick up at Big Green's Pot Shop), and STOP GIVING THE CRIMINALS IN MEXICO LITERALLY BILLIONS OF DOLLARS!! You make another argument, or what seems like an argument which is "People react differently when induced on marijuana -- Some contain themselves, acting mellow...Some act wild and out of control." This is not what needs to be looked at. It is hard to get statistics on something illegal, but just logically, weed, on average, calms people down, and, when compared to alcohol, the intoxication effects when compared are obvious. Marijuana is a stimulant that gives euphoric effects meaning you feel good. Alcohol is a depressant, meant to cloud your mind, vision, and deprive motor functions. If everyone stopped drinking alcohol and started smoking weed, believe that people would be, at the very least, not dying as fast. Marijuana does not kill brain cells or your liver at all like alcohol does very well. But here are my reasons to legalize weed. 1) If we taxed it, our deficit would decrease 2) Criminals will no longer be funded by the sale of this product 3) People who get 5-10 years in jail because he smoked a bowl near a cop does not make them criminals. Legalizing marijuana will release jail rooms where these people are being held, making them available for REAL CRIMINALS that are involved in REAL CRIMES with REAL VICTIMS. Rape, murder, grand theft auto, they are not even comparable to lighting a joint for your own entertainment. 4) With the release of these jail rooms, we also save a lot of money. 5) Same argument as above, just applied to police. More money spent on police stopping real crimes. Do you even know how Marijuana first became illegal? Do you know when? It is an interesting story filled with bigotry, racism, and press. (1) If you read the link below, some of the reasons why weed became illegal is simply astounding. It became illegal for the first time in 1934. Some of the "evidence" were scare tactic statements saying things like "this plant makes a negro look at a white woman twice" or such wonderfully proven true statements like "it makes a white woman lust after dark skin." When weed was first made out to be bad, scare tactics were used like press statements such as "Much of the most irrational juvenile violence and that has written a new chapter of shame and tragedy is traceable directly to this hemp intoxication. A gang of boys tear the clothes from two school girls and rape the screaming girls, one boy after the other. A sixteen-year-old kills his entire family of five in Florida, a man in Minnesota puts a bullet through the head of a stranger on the road; in Colorado husband tries to shoot his wife, kills her grandmother instead and then kills himself. Every one of these crimes had been proceeded [sic] by the smoking of one or more marijuana "reefers."" This is the man who put together the case against weed. Seriously... how stupid are we to believe these blatant lies? Action must be taken, and I assure you, letting weed stay illegal is not the answer. I hope I have sufficiently convinced you, and if my logic does not stand up, I expect that you will let me be aware of it. Thank you and good luck 1 http://www.druglibrary.org...