Nope. But, your argument might hold more water, if they actually recorded pot-related deaths accurately. Oh wait, maybe it wouldn't hold more water, because then the stats wouldn't be in your favor.






Also, prolly no point in this, as you did not comment on it, but I did edit my other post. The first comment was not in relation to the OP but post #8.

OK, the whole "zero pot related deaths" is a nice bit of a trump card in little soundbyte debates like this. They're referring to overdoses, for the most part. Perhaps I wasn't clear that was what I was referring to when I said deaths because of pot.

I'll even stipulate that some misreporting might be going on with secondary medical problems, such as emphysema. Even having stipulated that, the question becomes...so what?

From 2001–2005, there were approximately 79,000 deaths annually attributable to excessive alcohol use. In fact, excessive alcohol use is the 3rd leading lifestyle-related cause of death for people in the United States each year.
- From the CDC (http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/)

80,000 a year out of a population of over 300 million? Hell, I'm feeling generous. Let's say that pot kills 100,000 people a year. That equals out to 0.00033% of the population. Acceptable risk.

One death is a tragedy, a thousand is a statistic. Life is a messy business and no one gets out alive.

haha, actually I was going to put I do not mind Alcohol or Caffine in small amounts but decided against putting it in as I thought it would be unrelated to the matter at hand which was debating if Marijuana should be legal or not.

lol. I was actually going to stay out of this whole debate, because to me, it is simple.

I do not smoke pot, and even it became legal, I would not smoke pot. So, the whole debate is kinda "eh" to me, since it will not change whether or not I smoke it or not.

But, the whole statistics thing got to me. I did a research paper a while back in one of my courses on misrepresented statistics and how they "influence" people to view things one way or another. I cannot remember where nor do I feel the need to researrch it all again, but I found it amazing that people were shown false statistics on purpose, asked how they felt about an issue, then were given the correct statistics, and asked again how they felt.
It is amazing at the faith that people put into numbers that anyone can make up and that even the smallest factor could change the over-all statistic. I read a comment one time something about such and such % of statistics are made up and the other such and such % are based off of people's opinions that could change tomorrow. Not true, but.....

I'm in the same boat. I don't smoke it, I have no desire to smoke it. The discussion is whether people should be prevented from smoking if they so choose without government censure.

Statistics can be misleading, which is why one should read the various studies in-depth and see their methodology. Granted, this would require knowledge about statistics to be able to find flaws in the methods. I believe Benjamin Disraeli said, "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics." On the other hand, what else do we have? Individual accounts? Anecdotal evidence? "Common sense" in the philosophical meaning?

So... do we want statistic or not? I suppose numbers are all BS, but here's something from the otherside of the coin.

Apparently according to your source, MJ doesn't kill, but it does add burden to the society, and unless it's used for medical purposes under doctors supervision (which is not what we're arguing about here), I still don't see it doing any more benefit than harm. If it does society no benefit, why should we add more alternatives for people to deteriorate their body with?

Here's what I found:

http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/...juana_2008.pdf

Yes, it's a government document, but I don't suppose they would just bring out charts with no bases behind them.

Check page 8 onward. There are cases of people needed emergency treatments due to MJ, MJ teen users are more likely to be depressed and have suicidal thoughts. It may not have killed them directly, but more unhappy kids surely isn't something we want?

Something that does more harm to society than benefits, I still don't believe we should make it more readily available for even more people to use.

People want to legalise it so they can obtain these chemicals without feeling like a criminal, I cannot see the number of MJ users decrease, when it's legalised.

Tobacco and alcohol are legal, it doesn't mean it benefits society. Haven't we got enough harmful substances already?

Eh, I can see where you're coming from. I'm mostly talking about America where we tend not to legislate morality. We don't want to turn into a nanny-state that would even CONSIDER filtering the internet like your government wants to.

Freedom means being able to make your own choices about what you put into your body. I'm also not advocating for teenagers to use it. To be honest, I'm not advocating anyone to actually use it. I'm advocating for the choice.

To touch upon the teenagers again, I would want to restrict the sale to adults. Adolescents have enough brain chemistry things going on without needing to add weed to the mix. Much like alcohol.

Who do you think would be more willing to sell to a teenager: someone who has paid for a license to sell weed (much like we do with alcohol) or some illegal street dealer?

Once the market is opened up, the regular market forces can act on it. If you get bad weed now, what is your recourse? Just be pissed off, shoot the dealer? In a regulated market, you would be able to have redress for grievances either through the vendor or via courts. The illegal trade would be relegated to a negligible amount, much like moonshiners are today.

Bringing my govt about internet filter into this, is like me bringing up that you have the freedom to carry guns and kill people on defence. Irrelevant. I didn't think we were arguing about juristiction here, more about what these things can do to people and environment around them.

If people can really take responsibilty wholeheartedly, and not do ANYTHING to ANYONE ELSE under the influence of MJ, tobacco, alcohol, you can fight for your freedom. But that's not the case, these's substances DOES affect people and society around you, and you cannot guarantee that 100% of the people will be using it responsibly. (As people don't use it responsibly with tobacco and alcohoo). Others would like the freedom to have a more clean society too.

The more available you make it, the more people are gonna use it, the more people are going to be affected. You've got enough numbers there to show making tobacco and alcohol legal has a much greater number of death caused than illegal drugs. People's got that freedom, and more people died from it. Ohh it's their freedom to be irresponsible.

But if you choose freedom over people's wellbeing, I guess that's the end of my argument. (Hopefully, I always come back for some reason LOL.)

Quite frankly, yes, I do choose freedom over the nebulous term of "wellbeing".

That's a dangerous road to go down. It would be in my wellbeing if I weren't allowed to eat cheeseburgers, pick up random women at bars, play video games for 10 hours a day, and do all sorts of activities that I occasionally partake in. We don't need the government dictating to us what is "for our own good". This is why I brought up the difference in countries...in America we have a strong national tradition of individual freedoms which, from what I can tell, just doesn't exist in Europe or Australia.

If we do something and it harms someone else, then we should be punished. We have laws on the books for alcohol that should relate to weed.

It is a fine line between being given the freedom to destroy ourselves by our own hands and being given the freedom to obtain something legally that could also destroy someone else by our own hands.

I have to admit, Hess brought up a good point. What good came out of legalizing tobacco and alcohol? Learn from the past. If anything, these should be taken away, not add more shit to the list.

Yes, you have a right to decide what you do and how you do it and not all of the choices will be good for you. But, giving you more options to choose from is not taking away your freedom, it is simply limiting your hazards. We "baby-proof" our houses and put up baby-gates, why? To limit the harm that can come to a child. This child still has its freedom, but it is a controlled freedom, because total freedom would be to disastrous. Same thing here. We still have freedom, limited freedom, but we still have it, because to be given total freedom would be too disastrous on society as a whole. Not on an individual stand-point.

Should we also have the freedom to kill anyone we want? It should be our choice!!!!!!!!!! Oh but if they legalized murder, everyone would be dead, lmao. :cheeky: