legalizing marijuana!

.. Hopefully, my opponent will shape up on Spelling/Grammar. ==Refutations== Seeing that my opponent has failed to provide any logical form of structure, I shall try to organize his paragraph into coherent sections. 1. His Plan - Basically, Pro has asserted that the government simply needs to regulate it and tax it, similarly to tobacco and alcohol. Alright. I suppose I shall assume that we are looking at this from the point of the government - and it is the government's responsibility to do what is best for its people. 2. Marijuana does not harm people. The statement is completely false. Marijuana holds people back with disadvantages long-term and short-term. Refer to my Contention One, as this argument is refuted there. 3. It has lasted a long time. I literally Lol'd at some of the things that Pro stated. Apparently, marijuana was the first cultivated plant. False, it was the fig [1]. Pro also asserted that marijuana can be used for medical purposes - and I recognize the fact that it can be used for medical reasons, however this doesn't justify why we should legalize it. Medical marijuana is legalized in some states - but we do not see a reason to completely legalize marijuana in general. And futhermore, smoking marijuana was never proven to be, in any way, medically helpful, and it's much more likely to harm your wellbeing [5]. Also, hemp growing "naturally" is not a valid argument. Some poisonous plants grow naturally - so is it fine to eat them? "Cave men used the herb to speed up their language skills and and the use of new tools and instruments and cave art! "-PRO First provide a source for this far-fetched claim. Then I'll refute. 4. Everything can be abused - and look at tobacco/alcohol. I somewhat agree - a lot of legal things *can* be abused, but the fact is that they are rarely ever abused. However, in most cases, marijuana is abused, and hence a danger to society and the people. This is why marijuana is illegal. Simply because one thing is legal does not mean everything should be legalized. In fact, I believe that the government should step forward and start putting more restrictions and cracking down on the useage of tobacco/alcohol. But anyways, the daily smoking of relatively small amounts of marijuana (3 to 4 'joints') has at least a comparable, if not greater effect on the respiratory system than the smoking of more than 20 tobacco cigarettes [5]. 5. Misc. ? I don't even. .. . The title of this debate is "legalizing marijuana", so I would assume that this debate would be about whether or not the USFG should, frankly, legalize marijuana. My opponent's random assertion that the drinking age/tobacco age should be lowered is strange and irrelevent. This is completely off topic. ==Contentions== C1: Marijuana is harmful. How is marijuana harmful? Overall, hemp causes cognitative problems, risks mental health, damages traffic safety, and leads to other drugs. Children with the average grade of a D or a F are 4 times more likely than children with an average grade of A to have used marijuana in the past year [2]. This study implies that those who start using marijuana as a drug start to fall in school - there is an obvious correlation. A study discovered that after 24 hours since they last used the drug, regular college marijuana users still failed with attention, memory, and learning [3]. Frequent marijuana users also have problems with math and verbal expression, along with a failing memory [4]. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, even a moderate dose of marijuana is able to destroy a driver's ability. This study measured the "reaction time and how often drivers checked the rear ­view mirror, side streets,and the relative speed of other vehicles. "Marijuana also leads to even stronger drugs. In fact, "The earlier kids start using marijuana, the more likely they are to become dependent on this or other illicit drugs later in life"[5]These effects can lead to more negative effects. A bad educatio harms a person's ability to think, to work properly, and to make decisions. Furthermore - failing attention harms the people's ability to perform-which can cost lives. For example, their driving may be reckless or they may be careless on a job. Source [1] . http://www.npr.org... [2] . http://www.samhsa.gov... [3] 5 Pope, HG and Yurelun-­Todd, D. The residual cognitive effects of heavy marijuana use in college students. Journal of the American Medical Association. [4] . http://cinp.org... [5] . https://www.ncjrs.gov...I'll end my arguments for now.