Marijuana Should be LEGALIZED?

I think it should definitely be legalized. I go to a top ranked college and have smoked everyday since I was a junior in high school and my lowest grade last semester was a B+. People say that it makes you less productive and less intelligent, and personally i have found that to be untrue. People need to try it before they bash it.

I refute the idea posted above that somehow because weed hasn't met the standard for being a benefit to society that it should not be decriminalized.

When did the measuring stick for personal freedom become what someone else thinks is good for me when it's pretty impossible to prove either way?

What I do know about cannabis is that it doesn't depress the central nervous system and kill people like opiates do. It doesn't cause liver failure like many pain medications and legally available FDA approved compounds do. In treating anxiety and depression it wont cause Parkinsonism.

In a free society it's not required that the benefit of something be proven for it to be legal. The impetus is on the Government to prove beyond any doubt that it is a bad thing, using the standards of the people as a measuring stick. The people are speaking.

It's not the purpose of government to dictate my morality, or stop me from taking calculated risks at my own peril.

Marijuana is an uncontrolled substance with well over 200 different largely untested components; as such the pharmacology of the various component drugs is for the most part unregulated and uncontrolled.

Marijuana doesn't satisfy any of the normal tests that are applied for the admission of a new drug and as such, should remain illegal.

The other question that remains is what benefits if any it provides to society. No independent trials have ever proved that it improves or has any positive medical benefits.

I am opposed to all drug laws because I believe what you put into your own body is your business. I do not use drugs and discourage it but do not feel the government has the right to tell you what you can or cannot do to your own body.

Perhaps if you didn't smoke weed you would get all As? Statements like yours are meaningless. There is evidence that weed has some potentially harmful side effects, as well as damages your lungs worse than tobacco. But that is your business.

**EDIT: Miles, Agreed. As I have said many times, we have no right to infringe on the rights of others. That's the core of my belief. I have no right to tell you what to do to your body, nor do I have a right to force you through any means to do something to your body. That means I cannot enact laws regarding what you do to yourself. I also cannot strike you or anything else unless you are attempting to harm me or somebody else. The right to do to your body is not the right to do to others.

PS: I smoked weed for more years than many of you have been alive. I quit because I discovered it did slow my mind down.

The effects of marijuana on society is no worse than the effects of alcohol or tobacco. The crusade against marijuana was not based on its chemical properties or its effect on the user. The movie "Reefer Madness" is a prime example of the exaggerated claims against marijuana users. It was the bogey man of the day, and people love to fear the bogey man. As president, Nixon put together a large panel of doctors and other scientists to determine the ill effects of marijuana, with the claim that he would decriminalize it if the panel suggested it was not as harmful as previously claimed. The panel did its studies and said it was no more harmful to the individual or society than any other acceptable means of intoxication. Nixon had his chance to "legalize it" but instead he decided it was inappropriate to appear "soft on crime." The criminalization of marijuana is an ideological issue and not a moral or medical one. It is about freedom of choice, and this is one of many choices our founding fathers were free to make for themselves where we are not.

Driving while intoxicated is reckless regardless of your intoxicant. Addiction is as devastating whether it's alcohol, marijuana, or prescription drugs. Plenty of successful people throughout the world are able to handle recreational drugs responsibly, just like plenty of people can handle firearms and motor vehicles responsibly. If laws were intended to protect us all from the worst case scenarios, then we would have no gun rights and we'd be stuck riding trains or other public transportation rather than be allowed to drive our own vehicles. The complaints against drug use, as it applies to the average user rather than the addict, are no more valid than my claiming that all people who drive are reckless and destined to commit manslaughter, or that anyone who owns a firearm is a violent psychopath.

The so-called "war on drugs" is not practical or ethical. It is a crusade the same as the Salem witch trials and the Nazis of WWII, meant to ostracize those who don't "play ball" with the bullying hypocrites who insist on imposing their self-given authority onto everyone else, and to rally together the masses of fearful sheep wanting guaranteed protection from all things scary. The only reason these radicals are successful, like in many historical and modern cases, is that most people don't concern themselves with society at large. As long as it's not directly affecting them, most people are adept at looking the other way, turning a blind eye and a deaf ear until the injustice becomes an atrocity they can no longer ignore or easily correct. If the majority of Americans understood and valued freedom, there would not be so many senseless laws sending perfectly normal and acceptable people to prison just so some politically motivated individuals can appear "tough on crime." Unjust laws are not tough on crime, they are soft on decency.

I say legalize it. It would generate tax revenue, reduce law enforcement expenditures, and be easier to regulate in the hands of legal vendors. As Prohibition should have taught us, banning marijuana has brought more problems than it has solved.

At the very least, we should leave it up to each state as to whether or not to legalize marijuana. Comparing states who ban and don't ban would answer a lot of questions as to how bad marijuana really is.

Bob G- That is wonderful you are all about the person deciding for themselves, but it comes down to what the effects are of that substance someone has chosen to put in their body towards other people.

"To hear some advocates of marijuana legalization say it, the drug cures diseases while it promotes creativity, open-mindedness, moral progression, and a closer relationship with God and/or the cosmos. That sounds incredibly foolish, particularly when the public image of a marijuana user is, again, that of a loser who risks arrest and imprisonment so that he or she can artificially invoke an endorphin release."

Good for you, and for every one of you, there is a dozen unmotivated welfare leeches

There are plenty of people who drink themselves stupid every day and have straight As, that doesn't make alcoholism condonable or acceptable

Okay. It isn't going to happen anytime soon.