Legalization of Marijuana

Wow, this is odd.
The biggest and 'best' argument people have on here is that 'alcohol can do that stuff to you, yet it's still legal'.
Oh, so just because alcohol is legal, marijuana should be too?
Two wrongs don't make a right.

No, two wrongs don't make a right.
I'm not saying alcohol is wrong.
I'm saying it has worse effects and that it should be kept legal.
Marijuana has minimal effects and isn't legal.
That is an obvious double standard and very illogical.
The comparison to alcohol shows that.

druscilla; like me.:

Marijuana has minimal effects and isn't legal.
That is an obvious double standard and very illogical.
The comparison to alcohol shows that.

Marijuana smoke is four times more toxic than normal cigarette smoke.
It increases your risks for basically every other chronic disease.
Not to mention the emotional damage that it can do.

...Just like alcohol, marijuana has different effects on everyone. For one person, it might to next to nothing, and it might cause another person to have a panic attack. There's a reason it's called 'getting high.'

dark.:

druscilla; like me.:

Marijuana has minimal effects and isn't legal.
That is an obvious double standard and very illogical.
The comparison to alcohol shows that.

Marijuana smoke is four times more toxic than normal cigarette smoke.
It increases your risks for basically every other chronic disease.
Not to mention the emotional damage that it can do.

Moderate smoking of marijuana appears to pose minimal danger to the lungs. Like tobacco smoke, marijuana smoke contains a number of irritants and carcinogens. But marijuana users typically smoke much less often than tobacco smokers, and over time, inhale much less smoke. As a result, the risk of serious lung damage should be lower in marijuana smokers. There have been no reports of lung cancer related solely to marijuana, and in a large study presented to the American Thoracic Society in 2006, even heavy users of smoked marijuana were found not to have any increased risk of lung cancer. Unlike heavy tobacco smokers, heavy marijuana smokers exhibit no obstruction of the lung's small airway. That indicates that people will not develop emphysema from smoking marijuana.

Sources
Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. “Legalization: Panacea or Pandora’s Box.” New York. (1995): 36.
Turner, Carlton E. The Marijuana Controversy. Rockville: American Council for Drug Education, 1981.
Nahas, Gabriel G. and Nicholas A. Pace. Letter. “Marijuana as Chemotherapy Aid Poses Hazards.” New York Times 4 December 1993: A20.
Inaba, Darryl S. and William E. Cohen. Uppers, Downers, All-Arounders: Physical and Mental Effects of Psychoactive Drugs. 2nd ed. Ashland: CNS Productions, 1995. 174.

Zombies Eat Brains.:

...Just like alcohol, marijuana has different effects on everyone. For one person, it might to next to nothing, and it might cause another person to have a panic attack. There's a reason it's called 'getting high.'

Yeeeah it does make you panicky.
I was smoking a load and wander into the woods alone and it was awful, like a bad out take from the Blair Witch Projet DX

But I could say the same thing for booze. Drank to much got in a fight or couldn't walk any more and fell over hit my head or passed out in the street.

It should be legal.
I don't use it and I don't like the long term effects it has on people but I don't believe it's harmful enough to be illegal when alcohol and cigarettes are legal.
It just makes no sense to me.
I know smoking weed has a different effect on everyone but it's not often you hear about some guy beating another guy half to death because he was 'stoned'.
I just think it's ridiculous that we can produce such harmful substances and sell them in supermarkets, yet we can't smoke something that grows in the ground.
I don't understand. :|

Here it is indeed legal, i live in holland.
to tell you the truth, underage stuff is always going to happen because kids want to break the rules.
Even the good ones that say they never broke rules, break rules.
I'm happy its legal here though, I am 18, i'm allowed to do it, so i do.

Marijuana is still a drug. It can still kill you.

Crash!:

Marijuana is still a drug. It can still kill you.

Not as quickly as ecstasy etc. It does serve to have medical purposes, such as intense pain.
They even use ketamine, which is another drug used in pain management. In extreme cases. I'm not sure about it's legal status either.
Panadol is a drug too...:shifty

Crash!:

Marijuana is still a drug. It can still kill you.

Yeah... if you smoked almost your whole body weight in it at one time :shifty
If you smoke marijuana it isn't going to kill you. I'm more inclined to think smoking cigarettes can cause you more harm than marijuana.

Crash!:

Marijuana is still a drug. It can still kill you.

So can caffeine. :-)
Actually, more people die from caffeine overdoses than marijuana... I don't think there are any recorded fatalities from marijuana.

It's still a drug, it can still fuck your life up would probably be more accurate.

Crash!:

Marijuana is still a drug. It can still kill you.

So can the mood stabilizers that keep me from feeling suicidal.
Or Prozac. Or Lithium. Or Oxycotin. Or Lamictal. Or Zoloft.
The list continues.

Pretty much everything can kill you if not done right, if you think about it.
"Oh no, I'll just sit in the bath and use my hair drier, oops, I dropped it." -dead-

Where I live, marijuana is easier to get a hold of than alcohol or cigarettes. And I'm underage. It's kind of scary.

Legalising marijuana would be one of the stupidest things any government can do.
Oh yeah, and not lets legalise ice or cocaine, yeah, they have health benefits too.
-eyeroll-

^ Ice and coke are both much more addictive than pot.
Like, I'm against leagalizing that, but still :shifty

RENT.:

Legalising marijuana would be one of the stupidest things any government can do.
Oh yeah, and not lets legalise ice or cocaine, yeah, they have health benefits too.
-eyeroll-

It's more the fact that it's such a commonly used drug, despite it being illegal.
Compared to other drugs like ice, etc if does less damage.
Studies recommend that if you want to do any drugs, it's best that you do cannabis because it's less harmful than that of ice, esctasy etc. :shifty

sunshines:

Studies recommend that if you want to do any drugs, it's best that you do cannabis because it's less harmful than that of ice, esctasy etc. :shifty

What studies?

Pot and ice are two different drugs - they have different chemical compositions and they give you different effects. The negative side effects of ice can be quite instantaneous, but people can smoke pot for years without suffering like someone would addicted to ice. It's easy to die from ice, but it's not easy to die from pot. I'm not saying cannabis should definitely be legal, but I think it's pointless trying to compare it with a drug like ice, because the only thing they really have in common is the fact that they're both illegal drugs. One is more harmful that the other, in my opinion.

^The studies they discussed on 3AW radio a couple days back. I can't remember the quote but if I find it I'll post it.
Off-topic once again:

The Beckley Foundation Report:

Although cannabis can have a negative impact on health, including mental health, in terms of relative harms, it is considerably less harmful than alcohol or tobacco.

Cannabis is illegal and those two drugs are legal, yet they cause more harm than that of cannabis. Why is that? If you people consider cannabis harmful why not make alcohol and cigarettes illegal too? All three drugs are as easily available as the other if you search hard enough, illegal or not.
What makes cannabis a special case?