Marijuana should be legalized

1. Marijuana is a gatewayYes cigarettes can be a gateway too, but I advocate for banning those too. " It is estimated that 9 percent of people who use marijuana will become dependent on it. The number goes up to about 1 in 6 in those who start using young (in their teens) and to 25-50 percent among daily users." [1]Your comment of "Many of today's youth turn to selling drugs and the prescription drugs have taken hold of the drug market because of the high one can experience and the price is drastically higher than any other drug." fits really well with my previous comment of "Because a tolerance builds up, marijuana can lead users to consume stronger drugs to achieve the same high." You basically validated my claim that it is a gateway drug.2. Marijuana has bad health effectsThose studies say directly caused or responsible for meaning they were the main cause of the accident. ". A recent survey found that 6.8 percent of drivers, mostly under age 35, who were involved in accidents tested positive for THC; alcohol levels above the legal limit were found in 21 percent of such drivers." [5] 5% isn't insignificant you are talking about hundreds of lives. Also, Alcohol does contribute to many deaths also, but I also favor banning alcohol too."There has been no evidence to show that marijuana has taken a single life." really? In the previous round I showed that "researchers estimated that at least 2.5 percent of the 10,748 fatal crashes studied were directly caused by the use of marijuana." [4] Yes Marijuana may help with some diseases, but we are not talking about just medical marijuana. This is about all marijuana like for recreational use. 3. Use of Marijuana is ImmoralMy opponent offers his version of morality which is referred to as the Harm principle which is "As long as the action involves only consenting adults it is morally permissible.", but I don't believe this is really how he would determine morality. Irving Kristol wrote an argument to this saying "[T]he plain fact is that none of us is a complete civil libertarian. We all believe that there is some point at which the public authorities ought to step in to limit the "self-expression" of an individual or group even where this might be seriously intended as a form of artistic expression, and even where the artistic transaction is between consenting adults. A playwright or theatrical director might, in this crazy world of ours, find someone willing to commit suicide on stage, as called for by the script. We would not allow that-any more than we would permit scenes of real physical torture on the stage, even if the victim were a willing masochist. And I know of no one, no matter how free in spirit, who argues that we ought to permit gladiatorial contests in Yankee stadium, similar to those once performed in the Coliseum of Rome-even if only consenting adults were involved." [2] If this is really does believe this then All Drugs & Alcohol, Euthanasia/Suicide, Prostitution, Polygamy, Gay Marriage, Cannibalism, Bestiality, Incest, Public Nudity, Abortion (According to some people), Dueling/Fights to the Death, All weapons of any kind be owned should all be legal and is morally permissible; however I felt that I have shown that it does harm to health and others. This is a consequentialist theory because you judge the morality of an action based on its consequences; However, this is not a good way to determine right and wrong. This is because you can never know the full consequences of an action. A small action today could lead to major actions later, this is known as the butterfly effect. "The butterfly effect is the sensitive dependency on initial conditions in which a small change at one place in a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state." [3] What an action is today a small "harmless" action could lead to world peace, or it could also lead to World War III you can never know. 4. Legalization would increase the number of children having access to itI didn't say that you wanted to legalize it for children. I did say legalizing makes it easier for children to get it. "It is common knowledge that prohibition does not work." It should say it is commonly misunderstood that prohibition didn't work. During Prohibition there were significant positive effects. "Alcohol use decreased, cirrhosis of the liver was down 66% in men, and public drunkenness was halved." [6] Also increased savings, better provided and happier homes, and responsible citizenship. [7] Prohibition did work, but it was poorly enforced in some areas which lead to its repeal. There is still a multitude of counties that are still dry. [8] As far as crime related to prohibition "“Yes,” asserts Sabet, “organized crime was emboldened, but the mob was already powerful before Prohibition, and it continued to be long after.” So I see no strong evidence that Prohibition wasn’t temporarily useful to America" [6], and "Probably one of the most popular ideas of the time was that the mob held control of the majority of the illegal liquor trafficking. For the most part this is untrue, although in concentrated areas gangsters did run the liquor racket. Chicago was one of those cities where they did control distribution." [9] I also like your distinct lack of sources for this section. 5. Drug related arrest benefit societySomeone who illegally buys/sell/uses marijuana has already established themselves as someone who does not follow the law, and could lead to more crimes in the future; however, if they are in jail on drug charges they cannot commit more crimes. Also, they would get a lighter sentence than others crimes. [10]"Marijuana is the drug most often linked to crime in the United States" [11] "In a study of 10,441 secondary students in New South Wales, Australia, students who were frequent cannabis users were two times more likely to participate in assault and malicious damage of property than students who did not use cannabis." [12] We can focus on rehabilitation on why they turned to drugs instead waiting for them to do more crimes, and incarcerating them for longer times. By addressing the source of the problems we can make a better society or we could legalize marijuana and pretend the problems don't exist.Sources[1] http://www.drugabuse.gov...[2] http://www.mandm.org.nz...[3] http://en.wikipedia.org...[4] http://alcoholism.about.com...[5] http://www.drugabuse.gov...[6] http://www.phoenixhouse.org...[7] http://www.jstor.org...[8] http://upload.wikimedia.org...[9] http://cocktails.about.com...[10] http://norml.org...[11] http://www.mcclatchydc.com...[12] http://www.nber.org...