Legalization of marijuana

I took some time to look through con's points and found a lot of the supporting evidence to have very sketchy and skewed views of information. I'd like to start off my first rebuttal by identifying these for the readers.1. Marijuana is a Gateway (Speculative)The first article that con references seems to be very presumptuous of the numbers found in the study. In the article, it says:"The Yale researchers focused on a sample of 55,215 18- to 25-year-old. Of those, 6,496, about 12 percent, reported that they were abusing prescription opiates. Of the group abusing these drugs, about 57 percent had used alcohol, 56 percent had smoked cigarettes and 34 percent had used marijuana." (1)That 34 percent may seem a bit daunting at first, but in reality, it's not. The study focuses on a large sample size of young adults to find a correlation between marijuana and medicinal drug abuse. It succeeds in this regard, but it fails to identify any real conclusion on causation. There are many important questions that the study did not identify that could change the conclusions gained from reading it.Example: What was the rate of use among the 2,078 marijuana users who became abusers of prescription drugs? Where did the study take place? What was the history of those who became abusers? What of the other 48,719 individuals also smoked marijuana and did not become prescription drug abusers?It's important that these and many other questions be answered before using this study to confirm a gateway theory of some kind. The third article that con references is completely unscientific with it's accusations. It does not support it's claims with sources and it's focus on scaring readers rather than informing them comes from a bias towards drugs in their entirety. This website does not prove that a trend exists between tolerance and harder drug use. There is however, a study that points the finger at prohibition for creating an environment that encourages drug abuse. To quote a researcher, they suggest that:"In contrast with marijuana use, rates of other illicit drug use among ER [emergency room] patients were substantially higher in states that did not decriminalize marijuana use. The lack of decriminalization might have encouraged greater use of drugs that are even more dangerous than marijuana" (1)(3)While it is not conclusive, neither is any gateway theory that is proactively advocated. This point is not wholly valid and demands more evidence to be definitive.2. Marijuana has bad health effects (speculative)This is a much larger point that will need a lot more characters than I currently have available to explain everything that is wrong with con's analysis. I will go further on this in my next rebuttal3. Use of Marijuana is Immoral (Incorrect)I'm afraid you've incorrectly used both Utilitarianism and Kantian ethics in an example. You over simplified the use of marijuana to be wholly bad and implied that every person would have the same outcome without deciding what the setting was. For Utilitarianism to work in this situation, we must identify a common purpose and setting for it's use. Let's say it is for recreational purposes and everyone who would use it at the time would be doing it at their own homes outside their front door, sitting in a lawn chair. Being that they are stressed and overwhelmed at the moment, they would like a moment to relax. Now, they all smoke their joint of cannabis with the sole intent of reducing pressure and relaxing. They are affecting no one but themselves and are successfully achieving a high that is pulling them away from their troubles for the time being. The outcome to this is not immoral as much as it is neutral. It would negatively affect no one when used by responsible adults who only wish to feel free for an hour or so before returning to their work. It is something similar to smoking a cigarette but effectively less dangerous for your health in the long run.Now, Kantian ethics would see how a person intends for a drug to affect themselves and only becomes immoral when they intend to affect someone else around them negatively. Blowing smoke in someone's face or intentionally smoking around someone else would be considered immoral by Kant ethics. 4. Legalization would increase the number of children having access to it (Incorrect)There appears to be an overwhelming number of studies against this claim with studies confidently saying that legalization does not increase use by children. In fact, one study states that ""Levels of use tended to be higher in the decriminalization states both before and after the changes in law. [S]tates which moderated penalties after 1974 (essentially a group of decriminalization states) did indeed experience an increase in rates of marijuana use, among both adolescents (age 12-17) and adults (18 or older). However, the increase in marijuana use was even greater in other states and the largest proportionate increase occurred in those states with the most severe penalties." (1)There is no peer reviewed study that confirms that use among children would increase if marijuana was decriminalized.5. Drug related arrest benefit society (Speculative)There's not a lot of strength to this claim. A lot of it is very easily refuted and just illogical. It's rather ignorant to speculate that buying weed illegally puts you on the same level as any other criminal. While it is illegal, it's not a decision made at the expense of another human being. Selling could be argued to be much worse, but the negative connotation behind the act and the environment when selling the drug is created by prohibition itself. I'll go over that in point 7.The sources that con uses are also intentionally misleading. The first article that con references with a quote "Marijuana is the drug most often linked to crime in the United States" is very presumptuous of a studies results. The article states that "Eighty percent of the adult males arrested for crimes in Sacramento, Calif., last year tested positive for at least one illegal drug. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com... Marijuana was the most commonly detected drug, found in 54 percent of those arrested". (4) While this may be true, the study did not find ample evidence to designate that marijuana was the main cause of the crimes. It would be vital to identify whether the drug was used hours or weeks prior to the crime taking place; but the article ends up avoiding that question entirely. Overall, it assumes too much to be a useful source.The source that con used for the New South Wales study does not support his self made conclusion. Straight from the forty page paper con referenced without indicating a page number, states on page 19: "Given that marijuana can be identified for up to 30 days past the time of consumption, this suggests that individuals who engage in violent crimes are also likely to engage in marijuana use but the marijuana use is not necessarily related to their decision to engage in crime". (5)There is a lot of problems with this argument that also has to do with the prohibition system itself and why it fails to stop drug abuse by forced treatment. I'll continue on this in point 7, but I'd like to say that the supporting evidence of this claim is entirely speculative rather than factual. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com...; 6. Legalization of marijuana will lead to the legalization of other drugs (Incorrect)For con's source, the information is rather unorthodox. It lacks variables like sample size to indicate whether the drugs were on equal ground with eachother. While alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana may be on a far closer playing field; The others might be tremendously smaller in regards to size and length of studies taken into account. (6)It's also pretty clear that this actually does not help this argument. The cannabis drug is not of the same kin as synthetic drugs such as heroin, meth, and crack. It is very obvious that there is less of an impact from the drug when comparing it to others. Dependency is lower, withdrawal symptoms are far more tame, and the immediate affects are no where near as dangerous as harder drugs. con's conclusion is not properly supported.7. Regulated marijuana would greatly improve federal and state funded programsThe point of this argument is to prove that regulation is superior to prohibition. The supporting evidence comes from the lucrative cannabis growing industry prohibition has created, the failure of the drug rehabilitation system to stop drug abuse, and the overwhelming amount of money put into prosecuting marijuana users rather than suppliers of both marijuana and other hard drugs. I'm incredibly close to running out of characters so I will have to leave both health affects and regulation for my next rebuttal.I'll be interested in what con has to say in his next rebuttal.Sources:(1) http://www.ctpost.com...(2) http://norml.org...(3) http://www.nap.edu...(4) http://www.mcclatchydc.com...(5) http://www.nber.org...(6) http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org...