Legalize marijuana

Thank you for hosting this debate and I am glad to have taken this challenge. There are a plethora of reasons to keep marijuana illegal; not only does it take money away from quality people that deserve the money, but it also makes smoking marijuana safer. First off, we need to understand that, if marijuana were to be illegal, the government would tax it; you can see examples of this through alcohol and tobacco industries - there would be nothing stopping the government from commandeering the marijuana "industry". Let's take this information and start to draw some negatives from it. If the government were to start taxing marijuana, we can also assume that they would produce it, as well - the reason for this is that, they would want to control the market over the freelance dealers that they would be getting the /most/ profit for the /least/ quality. So, you can expect that the farmer being paid to grow the crop doesn't know what they're doing, how to do it, or the more appropriate way to grow the plant. ...and the reason that people would still pay for their low quality marijuana is convenience, variety, and social aspects. It's convenient because there would be marijuana shops around the nation; it would be easily accessible, easier to procure than getting it from a freelance dealer, and it would also save people a lot more time. It's variety would be the part to rake in all the customers; there would be so many blends, flavors, and sizes that it would be silly to go to a freelance dealer that has less than half of the items they have at the smoke shop. Finally, it's social aspects would include going to a smoke shop because you can and because you want to impress your friends - which would actually happen more than you would think. With this being said, you would have a health risk on your hands, right off the bat. The farmer that is being paid to do this obviously doesn't have a passion for producing marijuana and they also don't have a passion for selling it, innovating it, and making it healthy. I mean, look at the way they treat are food just for a bit of extra money - genetically modified and probably not 100% food. After your health risk, you also have your marijuana being taxed. So, that dime bag that you used to get from your freelance dealer for $10 is now $15.99 + tax. This is giving money to the government and taking money away from the individuals that truly need it - the freelance dealers. Not to mention, this is money that will be circulated throughout the nation - this is the money that the people need because America, in no doubt, it very close to having a second Depression. Moving away from the negatives, let's focus on the positives of keeping it illegal. Going back to the freelance dealer; this is someone that obviously has a passion for marijuana. They could have chosen any other path in life, however, they chose to produce marijuana and give it to the community. Sure, they get profit for it, but I can assure you that there's more to that passion that just income. With dealers, you dedication to quality and quantity. They're probably in their grow op trying to experiment with different combinations to get the greatest marijuana possible; even if this is the minority of dealers (which doesn't seem to be so), you can still expect the weed to be a lot safer than having the government take it over. I think that the massive money circulation, safety and health benefits, and positive influence on jobs outweighs whatever positives there may be to having it legal. If you really want to debunk some of the reasons that people want it legal: "I want marijuana legal because 1.64 million people are arrested for drug charges and most of them were based on a small amount of marijuana in their pocket." You can decriminalize something while illegal. You could simply decriminalize the act of carrying around marijuana or smoking it in your house or other private areas. This will keep people from going to jail (for something totally silly, I might add) and would still allow for the circulation of money among the people. "I want marijuana legal because it would yield billions of dollars annually." While this is true, it's also very askew. The amount of yield that would come from legalizing marijuana, itself, would be $8.7 billion annually, whereas the legalization of other drugs would yield a good $38 billion. If the government really wanted money, they could start producing things in hemp and legalize all "hard" drugs (i.e. Meth, Cocaine, Heroin), this also includes prostitution. Marijuana gives too much to the people to legalize it. If it were legal: it would be unhealthy, unsanitary, a loss of money from the people, and an incredible amount of dealers would be kicked out of their business with nothing else to do. All-in-all, the legalization of marijuana shouldn't happen if people wish to reap the rewards of it being illegal and being dealt freelance.