legalize cannabis

Again my opponent misses key points of the argument So lets go through the points one by one unfortunately due to word limit I cannot copy and paste the part of his argument I'm referring to. My opponents first point: This is a highly ridiculous assumption that legalizing cannabis will stop it coming in illegally. The facts are the more tax goes up the more call for cheaper goods bootleg alcohol and cigarettes increase in demand absolutely no reason to make an assumption that the same will not be true of cannabis. http://www.freepatentsonline.com... We don't really need the link it's common sense My opponents second point: Firstly. See above argument. Secondly. My opponent wants to spend money on things like addiction clinics and drug awareness , by increasing the number of people who are very likely to get addicted and need to be aware of the addiction dangers of cannabis. So not only do we still have to pay the same (possibly more) amount of money on the war on drugs as mentioned previously,we now have to spend even more money on things that we're increasing the need for My opponents third point(copy and pasted this) "Last but not least, the legalization of cannabis could result in tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of jobs in the private sector economy" This again is an assumption although a fairly reasonable one. However to suggest the number into the tens of thousands I believe to be an over exaggeration , but that's not really the point here. The main point is really that it will also put a number of people out of work because more people will be smoking the stuff and a percentage of them won't be able to be bothered to do things like go to work, because they are addicted to the drug. We're all sensible people here and to try and claim that cannabis does not have this affect on people fools no one with any experience of the drug However this is a half reasonable argument for legalizing it ,but certainly not enough to outweigh the cons. "as well as a huge influx of tax revenue" Yes which we're now wasting on the addiction centres that we increased the need for in the first place. We are also now assuming that the governments are going to spend this money wisely rather than the common practice of being wasteful with tax payers money. http://www.forbes.com... http://lionsdenmedia.hubpages.com... "Moreover, this extra tax revenue could be used to make a surplus on the national debt as well as fund much needed social programs that were previously not feasible to fund." I don't want to start another debate just yet ,however asking taxpayers to pay the government's debt , really is a poor reason for legalization. It also makes my opponents whole tax point irrelevant. Reason being you're giving figures of $100 billion, yet you're losing a large chunk maybe all of it on lowering income tax as he say's here " lower the income tax marginal rates." So there is entirely no tax benefits whatsoever, in fact it could cost us in the long run (see above reasons) "In this statement, my opponent is making the bare assertion that legalization will result in higher access rates to cannabis. This is not always true; in the current status quo, high school students are saying that cannabis (illegal) is easier to get than alcohol (legal.)" There's many, many more people in the world than high school students. What about people in villages towns and areas that don't have a drug dealer whatsoever and have entirely no access to drugs? What about people who say I've always wanted to try it so here's my opportunity? It's totally foolish to say that making cannabis available in stores won't increase access to it. In fact my opponent say's it here "This is not ALWAYS true" He even said it here in this statement that would be totally irrelevant if it wasn't for the fact my opponent here contradicts his own argument. "People do not want to go to the dark side of society for cannabis, they would rather jump through a few regulatory hoops by purchasing legally than suffer jail time." So it is more available then isn't it? ""By legalizing it, we have more control over WHO gets the substance (due to that if one wants a drug, they'll probably get it regardless) and have more preventative methods of keeping it away from the mentally sick and our youth." Again it will do nothing of the sort as you say if people want to get it they will get we're just making it easier for these people to get it as it can be purchased legally by a third party and sold on to others. The rest has been covered I believe. So after all that we have an argument it will create a few jobs and it will make a few people happy. So let's legalize all drugs then? That will create a few jobs and it will make a few people happy. Yes they have worse side effects , however the real point is based on the reasons my opponent gave why argue for one and not the others based on the reasons my opponent gave My opponents argument boils down to this "let's legalize cannabis but no other drugs for the reason it's side effects are not as bad as the others" So again we still see no REAL reason to legalize cannabis