Marijuana's Legalization

First, thank you con for following my format and providing some sophisticated and legitimate arguments. My sources are numbered and can be found at the bottom of my post (the video to the right is my source (8)).1. -I find that hard to believe seeing as how many legalization advocates (including myself) actually suggest regulating and taxing marijuana. We know that the taxing of cannabis would add much needed revenue to the economy (America’s economy probably more so than the UK's). Even if such a fact were true, it certainly would not warrant prohibition of cannabis.-While it is possible to get high from secondhand/side-stream smoke, the conditions necessary for that to occur are not practical and are easily avoidable (1). Furthermore, the "negative health issues" you speak of are still in question.-Please elaborate on this point.a) Marijuana's physical addictiveness has been proven to be much less than that of even coffee's (2). Therefore, unless coffee (and everything more physically addictive than it) should be banned, the issue cannot be physical addiction but psychological addiction. However, you have proven my point because as you said, "anything that is in some way interpreted by the brain has the ability to be addictive." Does that then mean that everything that is in some way interpreted by the brain should be deemed illegal and dangerous? If not, I fail to see the relevance of marijuana's psychological addiction potential with regards to legalization.b) Actually the only consumable substance in the world that it is physically impossible to overdose on is marijuana (in and of itself), even water carries this risk (3). And as my source proves, it still is not possible to achieve overdose even in a lab setting. You simply need to consume too much in too little time, making it impossible.c) I know and have smoked with a regular user who has a family, successful career, and who is really a pretty cool guy.Simply because this is true, your implication that weed caused these adverse changes in your friend is weakened. I can say with support from my source that your friend either became aggressive for some other reason while smoking weed, or was already aggressive, either of which being the case with or without his own knowledge (4). The specific myth is number six.d) Simply put, the gateway theory claims that because and only because one has smoked marijuana they will move on to other drugs. However, this exact logic has already been universally accepted as a fallacy (look it up if you don’t know what that is) and therefore cannot be valid (5). It is faulty cause, the first one.e) I've addressed your previous point. Secondly, using your same logic, without cars there would be no car accidents; should there then be no cars? If everyone drove perfectly according to the traffic laws there would be no accidents. Consequently, when there is an accident the first thing everyone wants to know is whose fault it was. The same should apply to cannabis seeing as how it does not inherently affect the user adversely (same as cars). f) It is clearly easier for youth to achieve marijuana now because all they have to do is call a dealer (which isn't hard to find) and have the necessary funds. However, once legal, it would be taken out the hands of street dealers and be regulated; both similarly to alcohol (refer to point 2f to argue this statement). Then the only access would be in stores that enforce the age restriction and require identification, which naturally makes it much harder to obtain. Also, we already have an example of the success of more sensible cannabis policies with regards to use youth in the Netherlands (6).g) Once again I have addressed your aggressiveness point. Here is my reference, it is myth number three (4).2.a) In a 2010 Cato Institute study, they show how the government would create roughly $8.7 billion upon the legalization of marijuana alone (7). Considering that this does not consider government spending for cannabis prohibition in it's entirety, I would consider that pretty substantial (keep in mind that we are in different countries with different cannabis laws and different economic situations).b) In the U.S. it is legal medicinally only in a few states, and even then the laws are FAR from ideal.c) While I recognize this as a possibility I must ask you to reference these occurrences with alcohol. Regardless, the prevalence of such a practice would in no way even be comparable to the reduction of general use by youth resulting from legalization (6). This statement is further supported by the fact that these alcohol profit practices have not initiated any successful movement or nationwide desire for alcohol prohibition.d) I don't see how drugs’ being smuggled into countries makes my relaxing by smoking at home after a hard day's work dangerous to others.e) We are in different countries but the basis of my point holds. Marijuana legalization would benefit society by providing greater expression, and therefore less ignorance, and therefore MANY more beneficial applications of not only the drug, but the hemp plant itself to the nation. As far as the constitution part, I will touch more on it in argument 4a.f) Basically, once legalized, prices for cannabis in legal stores would be improved, as would quality, product options and security, purchasing environment, and accessibility (for responsible adults of course). Therefore, it follows that underground dealers would lose customers and consequently have much less to fight oer with regards to the underground weed market (just like alcohol). My source explain this much better (8). g) Actually you cannot, because you have no support, that argument is another fallacy (5). Number twenty: hypothesis contrary to fact.h) First, the truth about weed is distorted by lies that either ignore, mislead away from, or hide it in the U.S. Secondly, and with all due respect, I find your claim hard to believe seeing as how you were unaware of the fact that it IS physically impossible to overdose on marijuana, you honestly believe your friend's aggressiveness was caused by marijuana. Also, you believe that second hand smoke, and marijuana smoking in general is dangerous because of some unknown health effects that you have failed to provide and, for some reason, everyone believes it must have. I have addressed all of these with support from my sources.3.a) I beg to differ. Unlike marijuana, rape is certainly less prevalent than it would be if it were legal. Secondly, rape is quite obviously not a victimless crime. Rape is not beneficial to any country in any way. But ultimately, compared to marijuana usage prevalence, rape's prevalence is minuscule. "There is an average of 207,754 victims (age 12 or older) of sexual assault each year" (10). "Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States, with nearly 17million Americans age 12 and over reporting past-month use" (9). Seventeen million in a month (at least) or two hundred thousand plus in a year, the two are not comparable with regards to prevalence. Unfortunately, I must address your last few statements in a following post due to text limitations.Sources:(1) http://www.slate.com...(2) http://www.procon.org...(3) http://voices.yahoo.com...(4) http://listverse.com...(5) http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu...(6) http://www.erowid.org...(7) http://www.cato.org...(8) http://www.youtube.com...(9) http://pioneerparticulars.areavoices.com...(10) http://www.rainn.org...