What's your opinion on all these youngsters smoking marijuana?

I smoke marijuana from time-to-time, and personally I see nothing wrong with it. All of my friends, at one point or another, have also smoked marijuana. Marijuana, in my opinion, is not harmful at all, besides the smoke that goes in your lungs. You never hear ANY story about people overdosing on marijuana. As far as it being a gateway drug, I've only known one friend of mine to go to harder drugs after weed. And this is because it's in his genetics. His mother father passed down their addictive genes from hardcore drugs in their earlier and later years.

I personally believe it's still illegal because the government can't make any money from it. Think about it--if it was legally sold, it would have a tax. But people wouldn't buy weed because they can just grow it themselves. Alcohol and cigarettes are legal because people can't go out and make it themselves. They are much more lethal than marijuana. Cigarettes have rat poison in them, and too much alcohol can kill your liver. Addiction is nothing new and unhealthy, not just limited to drugs--people can become addicted to anything. People can become addicted to people.

EDIT: On the part about grades dropping and being delinquent that's not true. The bad grades I made from being being too lazy to study. I'd cram study, and it showed. I am in my junior year at the University--English major. Marijuana doesn't cause me to rebel or make poor choices or anything--I do, and I take full responsibility for my actions rather than blaming something else as society tends to do. Like how parents blame teachers for their child's failing grades....

no one should smoke marijuana unless it's for medical reasons because marijuana is addicting and leads to poverty, jail, and possibly DEATH. I think marijuana is one of the worst things in this world along with smoking and alcohol.

Chronic pot smokers beware. A new study found that regularly smoking marijuana may lower cognitive function, especially if the person starts smoking before 16 years of age." - http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/smoking-...

Marijuana makes people lazy - http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-teenage-mi...

After using marijuana "Teens showed abnormalities in brain response during a SWM task compared with controls, even after 1 month of abstinence." - http://www.psyn-journal.com/article/S0925-4927%280...

"A Canadian report says marijuana smoke contains more toxic compounds, including ammonia and hydrogen cyanide, than tobacco smoke. Researchers, including David Moir of the Safe Environments Program in Kitchener, Ontario, determined ammonia levels were 20 times higher in marijuana smoke than in tobacco smoke, while hydrogen cyanide, nitric oxide and certain aromatic amines occurred at levels 3-5 times higher in the marijuana smoke, Science Daily said Tuesday. The study was published in the Dec. 17 issue of American Chemical Society's journal Chemical Research in Toxicology." - http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2007/12/20/Toxic-c... “ Using marijuana is extremely dangerous when operating machinery or driving a car. The use of marijuana can subtly alter sensory perception. Effects of marijuana use may include heightened sensitivity and a distorted sense of the passage of time. Marijuana can also impair judgment and reasoning skills, especially skills that involve counting and the ability to follow complex instructions.” http://www.rochester.edu/uhs/healthtopics/Alcohol/...

"Driving after smoking even a small amount of marijuana almost doubles the risk of a fatal highway accident, according to an extensive study of 10,748 drivers involved in fatal crashes between 2001 and 2003”. - http://alcoholism.about.com/od/pot/a/pot_driving.h...

Britain's most senior coroner is warning that hundreds of young people are dying in accidents caused by their prolonged use of cannabis….The dangers of cannabis were highlighted in research published last month, which showed a sharp increase in drug-related deaths. According to the European Centre for Addiction Studies at St George's Hospital Medical School in London, in 2002, British coroners cited cannabis as the major cause of death in 18 out of 853 drug-related deaths. The drug was also implicated in a further 31 out of 1,579 deaths involving a cocktail of drugs. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1445718/Can...

""I have seen many cases of exacerbations of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder brought on by marijuana use," said psychiatrist Kenneth Certa, M.D., a member of the Section Council on Psychiatry. "Another problem I can see is that the marijuana in the community is often not very pure and is frequently adulterated with PCP [phencyclidine, an hallucinogen], which can also

cause problems with psychosis." - http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/newsarticle....

Our findings indicate long-term cannabis use is hazardous to the white matter of the developing brain. Delaying the age at which regular use begins may minimize the severity of microstructural impairment. - http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/135/7/2245...

“Cannabis use during adolescence and young adulthood increases the risk of psychotic symptoms, while continued cannabis use may increase the risk for psychotic disorder in later life, concludes a new study published online in the British Medical Journal.” - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/11030...