Anyway....I guess legalizing and heavily taxing marijuana could be a way to help pay for Obama's health care reform bill. :P

It would absolutely be an incredible revenue maker from taxes. And like they do with cigarettes they can keep raising taxes until the costs get prohibitive.

lilone, if your cousin and aunt actually died from Cannabis then this would be groundbreaking news. THC is highly non-toxic, with estimates of the lethal dose being more than 1000x the effective dose. Compare this to alcohol, which only requires about 10x. There is a ridiculous scarcity of deaths tied to the use of marijuana, and considering the prevalence of it's usage, this is very impressive.

http://web.cgu.edu/faculty/gabler/toxicity%20Addiction%20offprint.pdf

Possibly lilone223's relatives died in a car crash or something like that. If lilone223 doesn't want to talk about it, I'm willing to take their word for it.

But I wonder if lilone223 would support banning every recreational activity in which someone has died?

http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/viewanswers.asp?questionID=000231

'Experts answer' 'Can marijuana cause death?' There are plenty of experts who say 'yes'

Well, there have been zero deaths related to marijuana toxicity, but it would be naive to say that people don't die due to, in part, adverse effects of marijuana smoke... The difficulty is in determining whether someone's death can be linked to usage of cannabis. That said, the only statistics I could find that linked any deaths at all were from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. I think looking at the Australian statistics give a good idea of the relative risks of alcohol and cannabis. So StevenC, this one is for you.

First, let's compare how many people in Australia you might expect to be drinking or smoking on any particular day if you took a naive average of statistics. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare statistics for 2004 of the total Australian population, 8.1% drink daily, 41.2% drink weekly, 33.5% drink less than weekly, and the rest don't drink. According to the National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre, 34% use cannabis, and using their statistics of consumption trends, of the total Australian population, 12.24% smoke daily, 11.22% smoke weekly, 10.54% smoke less than weekly. If we take a naive average for the daily use, taking 1/7th of the weekly use, and let's say, 1/60th of the "less than weekly" use, we get the following percentages of use on any particular day: 14.54% of the Australian population drinks on a naively average day, and 14.02% of the Australian population smokes on a naively average day. Now this is pretty comparable, that's about 3 million for each given the total Australian population of roughly 21 million. But now let's compare some other statistics...

The Australian Bureau of Statistics lists 250 deaths between 1997-2005 that are linked to cannabis use, though it's unlikely that any of these were a result of direct toxicity, and more likely to impaired judgement and co-ordination. Now, the deaths due to simple alcohol toxicity (not even taking into account deaths related to impaired judgement and co-ordination and alcohol attributed diseases such as cirrhosis of the liver) between 1997-2005 was 1867 deaths, according to the same source. According to the Community Alcohol Action Network, there are roughly 3400 deaths every year due to alcohol caused disease and injury, which extrapolating over the span of eight years (1997-2005) is roughly 27200 deaths.

So if you please, compare 27200 deaths to 250 deaths for a very comparable rate of usage amongst the population and tell me that cannabis isn't safer than alcohol. This isn't even taking into account the injuries and hospitalizations due to alcohol and the immense cost on the health system. Yes, my calculations were naive and inexact, but even if I was off by a factor of 100, the relative risk would only be comparable.

To add a little anecdotal evidence to this... think of all the fights you've witnessed in your life. How many were alcohol induced... and how many were cannabis induced? When you think of abusive husbands and boyfriends, do you think of alcoholics or potheads?

Now ask yourself if alcohol being more dangerous than cannabis should make a difference? Can we baby our citizenry by not allowing them to engage in activities that are harmful to themselves? The number one cause of death is highly correlated to poor diet, but should we legislate diet to save lives?

I forgot to cite my sources! Here they are:

http://www.drugfree.org.au/fileadmin/Media/Reference/DFA_DrugRelatedStats.pdf
http://ncpic.org.au/ncpic/publications/aic-bulletins/article/policing-and-cannabis-use-in-australia
http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/phe/sdua04/sdua04.pdf
http://www.caan.adf.org.au/alcohol_facts/useinaustralia/

I'm sad that nobody has tackled my "Think of the Children" anti-legalization argument.

My Point:

If you legalize pot, you'll be killing babies. I'm assuming that nobody wants to be a baby killer, or associate with them.

Billions of dollars each year are spent on marijuana. Most of the funding is funneled south of the US border. If you look at the median income for a household in Mexico, subtract the income received from the illegal US immigrant working in the US (which is Mexico's document highest import by the way), then the average income per Mexican household will drop by a significant 10%.

Basically, the baseline of income to purchase food, clothes and shelter is very low. And even lower than statistics say, because of the immigration cash funnel.

If marijuana is legalized, there will be a domino effect that will essentially kill babies:
1. Demand for Mexican/South-Central American pot will take a beating
2. The lack of income received by the farmers will hurt Mexican families
3. The lack of income received by the porters will hurt Mexican families
4. The lack of income received by the drug cartels will hurt the Mexican economies (thus families)
5. The lack of drug smuggling will reduce the demand for border patrol, thus putting US men and women out of jobs, which will hurt families
6. The same goes for local police officers
7. The same goes for state troopers
8. The same goes for federal agents and the drug task force. Hurt hurt hurt families and skyrocket the unemployment rate
9. The abundance of government workers unemployed will lead to a flooding of the market. This will not only hurt other government workers who are now in competition, but it will stunt their personal income and raises.
10. The government will try to cater to this need and create a new target or agency to absorb the unemployment that they caused
11. This will lead to higher taxes, since the funding for the prior drug program wouldn't have changed and instead it will focus more on the next most 'dangerous' gateway drug that is illegal
12. We all know that higher taxes result in less cash in our pockets, so now the American consumer will have less money to buy food.
13. The Mexican farmer, porter, cartel, consumer, border patrol, US border patrol, police, fed, government worker, and consumer all now will have less money
14. Add this to an already struggling economy, foreclosure rate, and national unemployment, and we're looking at a boom in crime and homelessness
15. The infant death rate for babies in an environment of homelessness and crime is significantly higher than an infant in a more caring environment.

Dingle, don't be a baby killer.

Chrisp.. It was one of the better articles I've read but it's too much to type :P

Personal freedom, personal responsibility, yada yada.

I'm a parent, and in no way would I blame society for my child going to the "dark side" I'm too involved and good to fear such things.

Correlation doesn't imply causation Brentington, I enjoy marijuana every now and then but my future is still in tact I hope

(That doesn't mean there is necessarily no causation though, but the relationship isn't as clear as you make out)

LOL Ag, you win the 'Think of the children' award.

its just like cigs just not addicting...i smoked a few years back and loved it but i dont hve a urge to try it again....havent smoked in 3 years..been around it and offered even when i knew my parents wouldnt be able to notice....(im a good liar...trying to put my lying skills in dip hope it is working)...but i still didnt do it......i think it should be legalized for the fact of addiction people could use it like a treat.....like candy smoke it once and move on

@ag that stuff is happening anyway ..........and im not racist but america should legalize so we can grow it our selfs and get the money instead of wasting millions of dollars that goes to a country (Mexico) that is too poor anyway....growing marjunia ourselfs will help our economy......im only 16 but i think it will..

H'm, OK, that's a new argument AGAINST legalisation, then.

While tilMletokill wants to keep the business here in the U.S. (which apparently is where we both live), the good of the world overall is usually best served by allowing richer countries to buy goods from poorer countries, spreading out the wealth. So legalising marijuana in the U.S. —especially if it remained illegal in México, but somewhat in any case— would cause more of it to made here, creating less trade, and poorer Mexicans.

Mind you, I don't accept this argument either. But it's something that hadn't occurred to me before. (Actually, ag7433's baby-killing argument had some of this in it, but that was so convoluted that I didn't notice it.)

My main argument against legalizing marijuana: taxes.
If it is illegal then it is untaxed. Also, since it is illegal, the distribution of it is decentralized and managed my many small retailers; this causes a healthy price competition between vendors. If marijuana was legalized, the price would go up.
Here marijuana is legal, its just illegal to sell it. I think that's the best situation for consumers, keeping prices low and removing fines for possession.

orange.toaster, that's not true. The prices of pot are very much dependant on the level of illegality in certain places. The price is jacked up to compensate for the extra risk of going against the law. In Canada, weed is much cheaper than in America, and even regional areas like California and BC have much cheaper weed. If it were legalized, you might see large corporations undertaking the mass production of marijuana (Virgin's Richard Branson claimed he would sell it) which would definitely lower the cost of production and combined with the fact that they must no longer be compensated for the risk, the price pre-taxes would definitely be lower. However, it does depends on how steeply it is taxed.

As for ag's argument, it's important to note that most of the drug money goes to select individuals, and the wealth's effects on the general population are limited. It's a valid argument, but does the wealth's limited effects offset the violence and the power of criminal cartels in Mexico? You might make the same argument that in America, so many government anti-drug programs, crime cartels, and anti-drug organizations would lose a lot of their use, and end up losing jobs and whatnot.

I think the argument should be the compelling state interest in maintaining control over undesirable substance, and the justification of the lessen civil liberty, "apparent" economic activities, and using budget money to enforce such measures.

While this does not state that marijuana is the ONLY harmful substance, but gives a rather strong stand due to the norm found in our culture and everyday lives. The fact remains the while some activities maybe more dangerous, such as smoking, drinking, or even driving a car, the social norms dictate that only one act aforementioned is unacceptable and therefore ban from everyday life.

To continue, I simply state that continuing this rather scientifically unsound policy is in the interest of the state and the balance is tipping towards status quo rather than liberalization of our social behavior. Therefore, it should be recognized is the very high likelihood that if legalization was achieve would result in decay of society, lowering of productivity, increase medical problems, and inciting and encouraging that other control substance will be abuse, and pot as a gateway drug.

In conclusion, the fact remains that this social norm inherited from the more conservative era should not be lightly changed due to the rapid expanding counterculture, rather since the benefits are still apparent today, we should maintain the status quo and encourage debate to explore alternatives. Since scientific evident surface, it should be more favorable to be tighter on smoking and drinking not the other way around to be more soft on marijuana.
------------------Below is my opinion, not part of argument---------------------------------------------
By the way, I am from British Colombia, Canada, we are much more embroil in this debate we even have a party for it, however, I am personally neutral, since the War on Drug has not cause much damage up North, and police these days act if like it is already legalized, so I don't think it matters to me either way, since I don't smoke it, but great topic.

I live in the Netherlands - marijuana consumption has been legal here for about 4 decades - no peaks in baby deaths have ever been recorded here as its consequence. Also, pot usage here, as a percentage related to the population, has always been and has stayed quite low, much lower than in most, if not all, countries that prohibit and sometimes feverishly pursue and punish it.
Could it be "the taste of the forbidden fruit" that, once taken away (the forbidden part) will strip away much of its allure....? What if anything have we truly learned, since Adam and Eve....?