Drug Legalization

Thank you for accepting. I looked at some of your debates and I see you are a very good opponent. Let's go.Before I argue, I will name five illegal drugs and what they do [1]:Marijuana- Changes personality, looks, and traits. A person who used it said that it did change their personality while high.Heroin- Damages immune system, increases chances of getting AIDS, has high chance of fatal overdose [2]. Cocaine- Triggers part of brain responsible for addictive behavior [3], restricts blood to the heart, causes weight loss, and causes multiple respiratory problems.Meth- Destroys physical appearance (including teeth, face, and arms) due to it cutting off blood flow to the organs.LCD- SEVERELY changes mood [4], causes hallunciations, lack of sleep and appetite, and in some cases, like all of the above (except marijuana), death.These are also the base facts I will be using in my arguments. I don't want to have repeat links, so I will not post a [1] or a [4] after every fact. Just look up here to see what link my facts came from.Now, I will argue for these five drugs and why they should not be legal.Why marijuana should not be legalMarijuana is borderline legal, and I could personally (weakly) debate for either side. While marijuana has never killed anyone, but it does have some side effects. The first one I would like to focus on is how it changes the brain. Marijuana messes with two important concepts of a human: balance and memory [5]. Marijuana severely can cause loss of memory and an unstable balance, both mentally and physically. The mental way it messes with your balance is that it leans you over to depression instead of happiness. A normal balance is sometimes happy, sometimes sad. But marijuana throws off that by a ton, making you depressed more and more often. Physically, it can throw of your sense of balance, making you dizzy and hurting your inner ear capability. Now onto personality. Marijuana, like other drugs, can screw you over mentally. Up to 30% of users [5 also] report dealing with anxiety shortly after marijuana use, making it one of the most common side effects. Anxiety can cause distrust, which means you are unable to receive help because you do not trust someone to do something. Also, it makes you weird. Really weird. It gives you seemingly very real but not real hallucinations. This is also one way it robs you of sleep, as you probably can't go to bed while thinking about the Easter bunny and Jessica Alba on a beach (this debate needs some humor.)Why heroin should not be legalSince we are off of the marijuana train, I can start using death stats to prove my point. Heroin is much more serious than marijuana, and is sometimes used because of the addictive personalities of marijuana. It is also somewhat like marijuana, as it eases pain.That's where the good stuff ends. Other than relieving pain, it doesn't do anything good for you. It destroys your body inside and out. Due to the fact that it damages the veins, it affects the lungs and heart. That causes fatal things such as lung disorders and heart disease. If you are lucky enough to not get these, there are still other ways involving the veins that it destroys your body. Heroin can decrease heart rate, which is linked to an irregular heartbeat. It also makes you feel warm and very sick due to the fact that it shrinks blood vessels [6]. Is this all fatal? The answer is yes. While the things I named can kill you, the main threat is actually overdose. Heroin enters your bloodstream very quickly, severely increasing the chances of an overdose. While I can not find USA stats, I did find a smaller sample size. In the past two years, 310 people in St. Louis have been killed by overdoses of heroin [7]. The U.S.A numbers are probably much, much larger. Why cocaine should not be legalCocaine is as deadly as any other illegal drug. It also has severe side effects. In my opinion (from what I've read) cocaine is the most addictive drug, the one responsible for triggering the addictive part of your brain. This leads the path to other addictive drugs. Not only does it trigger a bad part of your brain, but it also causes paranoia [8]. Also, when you come off the drug, you often feel depressed and suicidal. With suicide already killing over 900,000 in the world [9], it's not like we need any more of that.What does cocaine actually do in the long run? It cuts off circulation to the heart, which increases the chances of death. What happens is the blood clots, making it impossible for the heart to pump blood. This causes about 10,000 deaths annually in the U.S alone [10]. The other thing cocaine does is makes you lose touch with reality [11]. This causes you to constantly live in a fantasy world and have no sense of any dangers in the real world whatsoever. This also kills people.I don't want to overwhelm you (or myself :P), so I will do the last two drugs in the second round.Thank you for reading![1] http://listverse.com...[2] http://www.stopheroin.net...[3] http://www.businessinsider.com...[4] http://www.drugfreeworld.org...[5] http://www.businessinsider.com...[6] http://www.drugabuse.gov...[7] http://www.redding.com...[8] http://baysidemarin.crchealth.com...[9] http://www.worldometers.info...[10] http://www.indepthprogram.com...[11] http://www.drugabuse.gov...