Weed is a drug that leads to other drugs.  I believe that is the reason it is not legal.  The number of weed related deaths is 0, so the reason that weed isn't legal must be that it will lead you to doing other drugs that will kill you.  For that reason, weed should remain illegal.

mlb789 : Weed doesn't lead to other drugs, peoples own desicions do.  Before I ever tried weed I drank alcohol and smoked cigarettes. The positive effects of those drugs made me think to myself   "Hey , maybe weed will be a fun drug like alcohol". So from your point of view alcohol is as much a gateway drug as weed is, but I think it is a persons will which chooses to try other drugs. I have a lot of friends who drink , some to the point of being an alcoholic, but don't smoke weed. Similarly, I know a lot of people who smoke weed regularly and don't do any other drug, including me. Please explain to me how weed leads to other drugs?

From my own personal experience weed is not a gateway drug. Since you are 13, you have probably not tried weed ( and you should definetly wait until you are older, preferably 18+,  before you make a decision to try it!) so your opinion is most likely skewed by anti-drug propaganda .

JigSaw : out of curiosity is there anything that you think isnt a conspiracy =p
If it was legal the government would stop spending on prevention,and taxing would be a bonus so i think thats an invalid statement.

thenumberone : I don't believe I said it was a conspiracy, I just mentioned the fact that they would have a hard time profiting from it. Less people in jail, less weed to steal off offenders, less money to be made off drugs in general. If the government isn't spending money then what is the purpose of it? If you want someone to hold money for you put it in a bank.

JigSaw : Im sure there may be crooked politicians that benefit from it being illegal, but I doubt the government as a whole makes a profit off it being illegal. America spends a lot of money each year stopping grow ops and busting people. They do no profit from imprisoning people and in fact spend billions of dollars each year on it. They dispose of the confiscated drugs, although again there may be crooked individuals, but that doesn't represent the government.

However I do agree on your "less money to be made off drugs in general" bit of the argument. People can't grow synthetic or refined drugs in their back yard. It may not be the government profiting as a whole, but there are prominent members of governments/society that own parts of major drug companies. Those companies also lobby and fund against illegal drugs. They are the ones really making money off of prohibition.

Honestly I think people should be allowed to smoke what they want..nobody should be able to control that. yeah It's bad for them..but it is there life and they should be able to choose whether they want to or not and even If it's illegal people still do it so why bother having the law anyway?

crazycatpup : "if its ilegal people still do it any way so why bother having the law anyway."
I could say the same about heroine, lsd, or more extreme, something like theft.
Yeh people will do it, and if its legal more people would do it, most schools would be overflowing with the stuff.

thenumberone : Because most schools are overflowing with alcohol right? Lets use my old high school as an example. There definitely was some alcohol use but very minimal in comparison to weed. I believe the reason for this is the fact that illegal drugs are easier to obtain for young people under the legal age of other drugs. They can go to a drug dealer, in most occasions they will sell to the kids unreluctently , but if they went to a liquor store they would most likely not be sold any alcohol.

I don't see how legalizing drugs means they run rampant in schools. I agree with crazycatpup, the government shouldn't decided what people intake into their bodies, but I also think they should still keep similar age restrictions as other recreational drugs have

Honestly I think it should be. They sell and tax booze like no tomorrow, they might as well do the same with Marijuana. Truth is that it's no more harmful to people than alcohol is.

Don't get me wrong, it's not for everyone, but that's no reason to clog up the court system with something that's fairly harmless.

I don't see any reason for it to still be illegal. In fact, part of the reason some people wish to take marijuana is because it is illegal. It's part of human nature to do something that you are told not to do. How many times has someone told you "Don't touch that!" and you have wanted to touch it just because they told you not to? Therefore, in theory, if it is legalized, some people won't feel as much want to have it because there will be no laws saying that they can't.  Of course that could also be a double edged sword. Those who took marijuana before could suddenly decide to run wild with the drug since there will be no legal consequences if they do. Of course, that would probably lead to many deaths. However, it would be their choice to use the drug. It all comes down to what you choose to do. If it is legalized, people will be able to choose whether to use it or not instead of being told "You can't use this!" After a while, many people will begin to notice the rise in the death toll due to marijuana, and fewer and fewer people will take it. I know this is a lot to say based on theory, but these are my views on the matter. Sorry if this is confusing.

As far as this topic goes, I agree with Daniel Tosh on the subject.

I think that weed should be legalized, just so potheads never have anything to talk about anymore.

I think weed should be legalized, and I'm not saying that because I'm a stoner either, I'm saying it because it just should be. Human nature is to do something they believe is illegal will make them do it simply as rebellion. A perfect example was the Prohibition. Instead of decreasing crime and violence like the government thought it would, it increased it as more and more people started drinking as their way of getting back to the government.

If weed is legalized all it will do is drastically reduce the number of kids who smoke it as a means to fit in, because it will be taxed, and the increase of price will cause it to become to expensive for people without good jobs.
That being said I still do think that you'd end up with the shady guy selling you weed still at lower costs and such but I feel those numbers would be drastically reduced.

numerous studies have shown that weed is bad for you

Clean_Smilez : So has breathing in most European countries and New York, drinking soda, and using the internet.

I personally support the legalization of weed because it's been proven better for you than alcohol, but a little worse than cigarettes. There will be a lot less angry drunks and a lot more happy stoners on the streets.

The Canadian government is discussing it right now.

alexanyways : Cigarettes are far worse than weed.

The whole "one joint equals five cigarettes" is a silly myth repeated by middle school teachers across North America, and completely bunk.

Nicotine is just as, if not more, addictive than heroin, with extreme physical and psychological withdrawal symptoms manifesting in a matter of hours. Tobacco smoke produces carcinogenic tar that sticks to the organs and the lining of the lungs, reducing lung capacity and encouraging the growth of cancer.

Whereas cannabis -  the active ingredient being THC - is hardly psycologically addictive at all, and not physically addictive at all. Cannabis smoke does not produce carcinogenic tar, and studies have shown that people who smoke cannabis have a completely normal lung capacity. The worst thing smoking of cannabis can do is irritate your lungs and make you susceptible to bronchitis, but that would require extremely heavy and regular amounts of smoke inhaled.

In fact, cannabis may hold an answer to diseases like cancer... CBDs, a non psychoactive component found in cannabis, are the subject of

a lot of medical research because there is reason to believe that they KILL cancer 
cells.

If you like I can try to find sources. I hope this was educational. LOL c:

Annette : I really can't see how cigarettes are worse than weed, I mean half of my family smokes cigarettes and nothing really happened to them, I mean I know it's true that it contains nicotine, but it can't be worse than weed. So in my defense, I think it should be legalised, considering that most people today are smoking it.

thing1 : Your "just saying" made me laugh.

You can do a lot of things to 'get high' that are very destructive to your body, yet completely legal. One example is huffing paint/glue/spray fumes, or huffing the contents of compressed cans to deprive your brain of oxygen and make you light headed. Another is choking yourself (or having someone else choke you) until you become extremely light-headed. These methods cause brain damage but there's no way to police them.

Markeith21 : I dunno what else to say, I outlined all the physical and mental effects of the drugs that have been discovered through clinical research. No offense but just having a hunch about cigarettes is not the same thing as evidence.

I know some people don't die from smoking cigarettes, but the effects really are worse on your body.

There is no reason why Weed shouldn't be legal. First of all, liquor is legal, and that is worse for the human body than Marijuana on several levels.

Also this would not only create tax funds for city and states (as well as federal?) but also save money in the court system for needlessly putting people through the system for having less than an ounce.

The arguments against doing so make not sense, and are old fashioned.