Should Recreational Marijuana Be Legalized?

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I read it can cause brain damage and that brain grows until age 25, so there should be an age 25 requirement if pot is legalized.
 
edwest said:
Research has been done.
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Surprisingly little of good quality, mostly because of the restrictions.
edwest said:
It’s like saying an accredited lab cannot study a live, deadly viruses.
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Marijuana is not a deadly virus. Its an intoxicating substance.
edwest said:
So far, things are not going well.
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You do realize that for every single case of a person going to the ER because of marijuana, I can site you a thousand stories of people getting into car crashes, fights, getting liver damage, kidney damage, heart disease or strokes because of alcohol?

Alcohol has a far worse track record, and God himself has blessed and raised wine to the altars.

Its hard to make a case against marijuana that doesn’t also exclude alcohol.
 
Aquinas11 said:
I read it can cause brain damage and that brain grows until age 25, so there should be an age 25 requirement if pot is legalized
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If 18 is old enough to join the army or make life alerting decisions, than why not the choice of whether or not to harm oneself?
(This gripe of mine also applies to alcohol and tobacco)
 
edwest said:
This discussion has nothing to do with alcohol.
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They’re both recreational substances, both are addictive, and both can cause health problems and learning disabilities.

If you want to specifically make marijuana illegal, without engaging in prohibition style arguments, then I don’t see how it can be done.

If you can drink whiskey, you should be able to smoke pot.
 
AZ42 said:
Where does it stop? Should they criminalize all things that are bad for your health? Alcohol? Tobacco? Sugar?
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So with this argument, why not legalise all drugs for recreational use? Amphetamines, ketamine, LSD, cocaine, heroine, crack, the lot. Afterall, where does it stop? Or rather, why should it stop?

And I think there is a difference between recreational drinking and recreational smoking of cannabis. I’m sitting here with a glass of red wine, I will be able to drink it and not be intoxicated. A joint, on the otherhand, cannot be puffed without intoxication.
 
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edwest said:
Chemically, the two things are different.
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That is special pleading, and trivially obvious. If they weren’t chemically different, they would be identical. The question is, are the arguments you’d be using just as strong when used against a currently legal substance.

Again, if you can drink whiskey, you should be able to smoke pot.

(edit: I saw you changed your post so I’m responding to your new version here)
edwest said:
Wine is not marijuana.
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Whiskey also isn’t wine.
 
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Well practically we need a certain amount of people ready to join army if necessary, so practically speaking 25 may be too old. But you’re correct that army obviously can damage brain (PTSD, etc). Its just that we need people to join army for national defense. We dont need people to smoke pot for national defense.

With alcohol and tobacco, I’d agree if same evidence is shown of potential brain damage.
 
edwest said:
“Another uncertainty for employers is marijuana testing itself. Under federal rules, a test for marijuana is positive at 50 nanograms of THC (the active ingredient in marijuana) per milliliter of urine. However, this threshold can be reached days after an employee last used marijuana and after any impairment from it has passed. This is because marijuana stays in a user’s system longer than many other drugs, including alcohol.”
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That would be a good reason to be against such tests. They can also be set off by bagels.
 
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“Another uncertainty for employers is marijuana testing itself. Under federal rules, a test for marijuana is positive at 50 nanograms of THC (the active ingredient in marijuana) per milliliter of urine. However, this threshold can be reached days after an employee last used marijuana and after any impairment from it has passed. This is because marijuana stays in a user’s system longer than many other drugs, including alcohol.”
 
edwest said:
This is the wrong comparison argument.
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You mean “False equivalency” fallacy? And no its not. You’re stating the principles by which you’re judging marijuana to be worthy of being criminalised. There’s nothing wrong with me using the same principles on alchohol.

It would be a case of “False equivalency” if there was a principle, you had not stated, that would seperate the two cases.
 
Employers need business insurance. So if an employee gets some legal marijuana during lunch and something bad happens later, that’s OK?
 
edwest said:
The topic is not bagels.
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Are you alright? You seem to be getting a bit aggressive in this thread. You mentioned something about drug tests lighting up a long time after a person had used marijuana, and after all effects of the drugs had passed out of the persons system.

It think its quite fair to say that those tests are problematic because even bagels can set them off.
 
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