Marijuana

Marijuana is a funny thing in our society. In many ways it is no more dangerous than alcohol... at least from what I have read. Honestly I really don't have a very strong opinion on the topic seeing as how I don't partake, but I can see why so many people would want it legalized. Alcohol has just as much reason to to be illegalized and has been proven to have more long and short term negative effects on the user than marijuana, again, this is from what I have read over the years of being friends with stoners.

I really do not agree with the "gateway drug" theory mainly because the drug itself is nothing like those other extremely dangerous hard drugs and because the whole gateway aspect only comes into effect because of the crowd the person spends their time with. If you have a nerdy college buddy who smokes every once and awhile and asks you to do it, chances are, if you just smoke with that friend you'll never do anything else... unless your just natural curious in which case you would have already smoked pot anyway.

The most important reason I believe legalizing pot isn't out of the question is not because of the hypocrisy of smoking and drinking but because it would not only help the government (if it regulated it) but also cut down on drug related criminality substantially.

Like any recreational activity pot is prone to the same pitfalls... mainly addiction. People can get addicted to a lot of things: video games, porn, working out, etc. etc. Pot is not excluded from this, in fact it is one of the biggest offenders, but where this differs from alcohol is that alcoholism is a physical addiction where as pot is a mental addiction. Mental addictions are far easier to control.

Well I'm done talking about pot. Honestly I'm tired of hearing this debate entirely... college will do that to you :(