Marijuana should be legalized

2. Marijuana has bad health effects The vast majority of people that already use marijuana don't go out just getting high where ever they feel like it. They are ordinary people that use it in the privacy of the own homes. Those that you do see using it irresponsibly are almost entirely teenagers and people in their early twenties. Its because young people have not matured enough to be trusted to use a substance such as alcohol hence the requirement being 21. Yes you have to have food to survive but not unhealthy food. Its a choice that you make, whether to eat healthy or not. Why is smoking it a problem? When in a hospital you can be given medication through a needle which is a common means of delivery to an addict. Delivery is not a means to determine whether its wrong or immoral. If marijuana did actually have even moderate side effects they would not prescribe it to treat over 230 illnesses. Its prescribed to treat more things than any other drug known to medicine except antibiotics. 3. Use of marijuana is immoral That was the problem, the examples you gave were not logical in the first place so the conclusion of the scenario would be equally illogical. As for your example of cannibalism, that is on the other end of the moral spectrum. Though it has happened before Hannibal isn't exactly a figure people are eager to copy and attempt to legalize. People are allowed to donate their body to science and have their organs on display in a museum and this caused a major controversy with many people. They believed it to be immoral for someone to allow their body to be defiled in a such a way but despite the objections it was determined that it was the right of the individual to do with their body what they want. Suppose abortion was legalized, that doesn't force anyone to have it done and besides that it involves the life of someone that cannot defend nor make any objection. The child is completely and utterly at the mercy of its mother. These examples are too extreme! Your talking about lives being taken in brutal ways. Stealing is deemed immoral because your imposing your will unto others. Marijuana is not something that affects other people (unless you smoke it around someone without their permission) You keep bringing up things that involve harming other people. The butterfly effect is an impossible theory to prove because there is no way to know what triggered a situation to happen. It could literally be caused from anything. If someone had a impulse to go some place they never had an interest in they could be in the wrong place at the wrong time and end up being hit by a car and killed but if they had not had the impulse they wouldn't have went to the place and still be alive. It is an impossibly unpredictable theory. 4. Legalization would increase the number of children having access to it [2] "the available manpower was still tiny in comparison with the thriving industry" By your own words you described why prohibition cannot work. Our government is throwing trillions of dollars and thousands of lives at the war on drugs and yet its rapidly loosing support as the videos ive provided have shown. Corruption is a virulent problem especially today! They are uninterested in enforcing prohibition because they know it is a fight they cannot hope to win and they are just wasting lives and money. [4] Criminals are going to commit crimes no matter what drug they might use. That's why they're called criminals. Simply smoking marijuana does not make someone to criminal things so to be fair 10% of your statistic had done nothing criminal accept using marijuana while 20% had actually committed a crime. If marijuana were to be legalized the crime rate would drop substantially because simply using marijuana is considered a crime. Actual crimes such as rape, murder, and stealing are crimes, using a substance in the privacy of your own home or establishment is not a crime. You said yourself "Nothing changed besides how you classified that person" In other words legalizing it would not make matters worse. Using marijuana doesn't make people want to go out and commit serious crimes. 5. Drug related arrest benefit society A billion isn't a lot? Tax payers would disagree. If marijuana were taxed the same way you could have substantial profits. That was just Florida, suppose the other 49 states spent a billion each that's 50 billion. That's money that could substantially benefit something like the education system or the medical field. Just because its not the majority of the federal budget doesn't mean that its not a massive waste of money. You have not shown that crime would increase, you can predict that it might increase but there is no way to prove crime would increase. The only thing you can prove is that if it were legalized all those that were using it illegally would no longer be a part of the criminal statistic. Crime statistic therefore goes down. 6. Legalization of marijuana will lead to the legalization of other drugs Crack, meth, and heroin are not less harmful than alcohol they are among the most highly addictive substances there are with the most detrimental health effects. Many politicians and law enforcement are pushing to have drugs legalized altogether because of the utter failure of prohibition. I provided those sources earlier in the debate. I personally don't care to have any other drug legalized but can admit that it would save the American taxpayers a literal fortune. Portugal is a great example of how complete legalization can benefit a country. Since they legalized all drugs the crime rates dropped drastically. P.S. When this debate is over ill start a euthanasia debate with you