Well, first of all, marijuana isn't physically addictive. I've never tried it myself, so I wouldn't know how addictive it is, but there certainly isn't a substance in marijuana that makes weed physically addicting (like nicotine in cigarettes). I never really looked into modified marijuana, either, but I'm sure that if it was addicting enough, it could simply be banned.

Of course marijuana would be easier to get a hold of if it was legal. I mentioned that the government should also educate people about marijuana instead of putting the money towards keeping it off of the streets, which would probably be a huge factor in this if it WAS made legal.

The government making a lot of money off of marijuana would greatly help pay off our national debt. I realize that you're Canadian, so you probably don't really follow what happens in the US, but uh...we're basically broke. Our government actually almost got shut down about a week ago because Obama is spending too much money and we have a huge debt.

The argument about hemp is simply to support the legalization of marijuana. Hemp is a form of marijuana, and therefore legalizing it would be beneficial. If I remember correctly, the production of hemp was pretty much banned in the US since marijuana was banned.

Alcohol is also an addictive drug, but the government doesn't regulate our consumption of it whatsoever. The only thing that prevents people from consuming it is age limit. This brings me to my point about how tobacco and alcohol are legal while marijuana isn't. It just doesn't make sense, and I never said that tobacco and alcohol should be illegal. I said the only thing separating marijuana from these two drugs is that marijuana is illegal while tobacco and alcohol aren't.

I respectfully disagree with you, Aderes18. We see addicts everywhere anyways, even with the illegalization of marijuana. And water wasn't the only point that this person was trying to get across. He gave reasonable facts and great reasons, and he was right to say that everything is letal in great quanities. He used water as an example, but the same goes for other things, like tabbacco, alchohl, or even things like McDonald's. That's all that I wanted to point out.

But great article, dude! Really persuasive and informative. :)

I diasgree with this article. 1st of all. water is not addictive like weed. 2nd of all, people don't smoke water at parties and get high and do stupid things. 3rd of all, if we legalize pot, everyone would be smoking it and you would see all these addicts everywhere. 

It's atill a good article though. It was written well.

Just don't agree with what you are saying. 

Good article, but I respectfully disagree.

To start, you argued that any substance is harmful in large doses, so why is marijuana any different? Well, the main difference is that normal things we ingest, like water as you said, are not addictive. Marijuana is only really harmful when taken in large doses. Some people say that marijuana is not as addictive as drugs such as cocaine and LSD, but this fact just isn't true anymore. People are genetically modifying marijuana to make it stronger, more addictive, and if it were readily available and legal, many would get addicted to this amped-up version of the drug.

You stated that marijuana has health benefits. I am not denying this; it is definitely true. However, then you asked why the government should have a say in what we do and do not consume? That is a ridiculous statement, as well as a non sequitur. Of course the government needs to regulate what we consume. Forgive my slippery slope argument, but if our government didn't regulate what we consumed, we'd have drug addicts left, right, and centre. While I suppose it is a personal decision whether or not to use marijuana, I don't believe in using any drug, and if the government allowed marijuana then that would be an invitation for tons of people to get addicted, and the government would basically be saying that it was okay.

You say, "Marijuana can also be seen as a very common gateway or stepping stone for teens and adolescents to start with. One of the main reasons for this is because of how easy it is to get a hold of. This clearly shows the illegalization of marijuana isn't very effective in the first place." Well, wouldn't it be easier to get ahold of if it was legal? If it's a common gateway drug now, it'd be even worse if it was legally available: we'd have tons of people buying it and getting addicted. Now I know you say it's a personal choice whether or not to do marijuana. But if we had a good chunk of the population doing drugs, that wouldn't be a "personal choice" anymore: that would affect how we lived our lives. It would affect schools, offices, businesses, and crime rates, etc. 

Moving on to your argument about money. The government might make a lot of money off legalizing marijuana, but for what? So a bunch of people can get high? Your numbers don't "clearly" support your argument anyway. 

I don't quite understand your hemp argument. It doesn't quite relate to the rest of your article. And I don't think that hemp is totally illegal - my friend ate a hemp granola bar a couple days ago, and she's not one to buy off the black market. Maybe it's illegal in the US, though. (I'm Canadian.)

I agree with what you say about the health risks of alcohol and tobacco - I don't think they should be legal - but if you think they shouldn't be legal (and you also said the health risks are the same), why are you saying marijuana should be legal? Either you want dangerous drugs to be legal, or you don't. If you brought back your argument from earlier about how marijuana has health benefits, your argument might hold here. But as it is, your argument is contradictory and does not convince me.

You say "our government would greatly benefit from the legalization of marijuana." But what about the people? Who's to say the government would use the money in a way that benefited us? Maybe it might help us in the short term. But in the long run, our society might be affected in a negative way by legalizing such a dangerous drug.