Marijuana should be legalized in the US

alright, i look forward to this debate, and i also hope that no one votes either way based on an opinion. Thank you for accepting the debate, mattshuster. Here is my summary of his points made in his speech, correct me if i'm mistaken: 1. Marijuana is a dangerous drug, even if compared with worse ones. -can lead to heart attack -inhibits immune system -low rate of successful rehab after addiction -causes more problems than tobacco 2. Marijuana is a gateway drug -leads to more drugs -"very few young people use other illegal drugs without first trying mj -"The mj user has a statistically higher likelihood of trying and using a wide range of dangerous drugs than is true of the non user" i'm going to go out of order and attack point #2 first. The concept of a "gateway drug" is flawed. It basically states that those using a lower class drug (ie Marijuana) are more likely to start using harder drugs. when you look closer at the concept and the studies backing it up, it seems quite a bit less creditable than at first glance. http://www.marijuanalibrary.org... The above link is an article on said topic, but i believe not too many readers will actually read it. so i'm going to summarize what it says. here are the first two paragraphs: "The Partnership for a Drug-Free America, in cooperation with the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the White House Office of Drug Control Policy, recently announced a new anti-drug campaign that specifically targets marijuana. Instead of featuring horror tales of marijuana-induced insanity, violence and birth detects, this campaign is built upon the premise that reducing marijuana use is a practical strategy for reducing the use of more dangerous drugs. The primary basis for this "gateway hypothesis" is a recent report by the center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA), claiming that marijuana users are 85 times more likely than non-marijuana users to try cocaine. This figure, using data from NIDA's 1991 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, is close to being meaningless. It was calculated by dividing the proportion of marijuana users who have ever used cocaine (17%) by the proportion of cocaine users who have never used marijuana (.2%). The high risk-factor obtained is a product not of the fact that so many marijuana users use cocaine but that so many cocaine users used marijuana previously. " It only makes sense that a user of a harder and more expensive drug, in this case cocaine, would also use a drug with less effects that is also less expensive. chances are those users also used alcohol and tobacco. the statistic that this study avoids proclaiming is that 83% of MJ users never use cocaine. If you look back to the rates of use of both drugs for the last 40 years, you will observe that the two are obviously unrelated. They peak at different times, they grow at different rates, it is obvious they are unrelated. Think of it like you are in a building getting to different floors. simply because you go to floor one does not mean you must go to floor ten. marijuana does not lead to harder drugs. furthermore, even if the Gateway drug concept had credibility, legalization can reduce the possibility of using harder drugs. The simple fact that marijuana is available does not mean harder drugs will be used. You can look to Holland for an example of this. consider this second quote from the above link: "If the creators of American drug policy are truly interested in reducing the risk of marijuana users using other drugs, they should take a closer look at Holland, where drug policy since the 1970s has been guided by a commitment to diminishing any potential gateway effect. Wanting to keep young marijuana users away from cocaine and other "hard drugs," the Dutch decided to separate the retail markets by allowing anyone 18 years of age or older to purchase marijuana openly in government-controlled "coffee shops" which strictly prohibit the use and sale of other drugs. Despite easy availability, marijuana prevalence among 12 to 18 year olds in Holland is only 13.6 percent - well below the 38 percent use-rate for American high school seniors." http://norml.org... obviously we can scratch this idea of a gateway drug. Next i'll move backwards to his first point: in the first in a wide array of claims he makes in this point is that the risk of heart attack increases 4 times (the exact # is 4.8) in the hour after using marijuana. First off, the study this refers to SMOKING marijuana. As i said, marijuana does not have to be smoked to enjoy its effects. "Dr. Middleman (Professor from Harvard doing the report) also said that in the debate over the medicinal use of marijuana, it might be judged inadvisable for people with existing coronary disease. The Boston group studied 3,882 patients who had survived heart attacks and found that 124 reported using marijuana regularly. Of those, 37 said they had used it within 24 hours of their heart attacks and 9 within the hour of their attacks. The relative risk of heart attack increased 4.8 times within the first hour but dropped to 1.7 times higher in the second hour, suggesting a rapid decline in the acute cardiac effects, the researchers said. The group previously reported on other triggers of heart attacks, including cocaine, exercise, sex and psychological conditions. The latest report said smoking marijuana...was less risky than a "spurt of exercise for a couch potato or a snort of cocaine." -http://www.mapinc.org... next, this study has yet to have been reaffirmed, as is done in science. its results have not been repeated. This study showed that when a smoker is reclining their heart rate increases and if they stand up it drops suddenly. there was another professor (Dr. Grinspoon) at harvard(the school the report comes from) who disagreed with the conclusions drawn from this report. here's the link: http://stopthedrugwar.org... "Dr. Grinspoon: Well, I would point out that (in the study) out of 3,882 patients, we're talking about 9 who used marijuana within an hour of the onset of a heart attack. That's around 0.2%. By sheer mathematics, given that people sleep eight hours per day or so, we can deduce that 6.7% of those patients emptied their bowels within an hour of onset. It's incredible to me that the numbers here could be said to constitute a significant risk factor." So if we are to use the same reasoning, we can assume that shitting is also connected with heart attacks. the report said the risk was for people WITH HEART DISEASE. DUH. We cannot assume that simply because of one report that has not been peer-reviewed that MJ is connected with heart attacks. Later my opponent says that MJ users have a 30% rehab success rate. What are the rates for alcohol and tobacco? what about prescription drugs like OxyContin? The point is that MJ, like any other drug (or food for that matter) can be abused. used correctly, you can reap great benefits from the use of marijuana. Now to move on to make new point of my own: Legalization provides an avenue for Regulation If we are to legalize MJ, then the government can regulate it, as in Holland. Otherwise marijuana can be tainted with truly harmful substances. but if the Gov. could regulate it, then you would not have to worry about that. Tobacco has warnings. Alcohol has alcohol content and other things on the label. Prescriptions have active and inactive ingredients on the label. This way marijuana can be safer! Now due to time constraints i have to get off my computer. Thanks again for accepting the challenge! PS: tomorrow is 4/20!