Marijuana Causes Mental Illness?

1of42
Sat, 10 May 2008 00:05:01 +0000

alipes07:

Your basically saying that sans the health effects, we should legalize it b/c it takes up too many resources. That is an extremely weak argument.



Let me clarify.

**There is - in my opinion - only a single good argument for banning marijuana: to reduce the harm to people and thus to society that comes from its use.

I contend that marijuana prohibition, and its attendant waste of scarce money, law enforcement resources, human capital (through jailing otherwise productive members of society), introduction of a significant criminal element in drug trafficking, and loss of tax revenue (which could come from the sale of marijuana), as well as inhibited scientific process through dampened research and loss of funds necessary for treatment of drug users (that are going to enforcement instead) cause more harm than marijuana use ever could.**

Stop trying to twist my words to say something I didn’t. There are only 3 responses to what I just posted:

You agree with me.
You disagree with me because you think use causes more harm than prohibition (explain that position in detail, please).
You disagree because you think there is a better argument than harm reduction (explain that position as well).