Legalization Debate

[0rangekush]

Class debate in a few days on legalization...help/research would be nice

[weednotcrack]

If some one brings up the whole,"How can you test someone if there too high like breathalyzers and alcohol?".You tell them,"Do they have a test to see how many vicodin pills they took? or oxycottons? or even how many xanx bars?" = Win. also say that marijuana is nothing like alcohol.Alcohol is juices of rotten fruit, Marijuana is just a plant.


Also reading up on it's history will give you a HUGE advantage and this is right here is a GREAT source for it's history ,read it and i'm should you'll win the debate
Cannabis: A History - Google Books

And can't forget the failure of the war on drugs,Read
War On Drugs Clock

[Anthony19WA]

A lot of people know it, but in my opinion the most powerful piece of info you can ever give in a debate like this is that in the entire history of cannabis that we know about, not a single person, not ONE SINGLE person has ever overdosed or died specifically from it. Even Ibuprofen kills about 3,500 a year.

[amsterdamage]

I'd say do a cost-benefit analysis. If the costs of legalization outweigh the benefits then conclude that marijuana should not be legalized. But if the benefits outweigh the costs then conclude that it should.

The costs of legalization would include the same things that regulating the legal alcohol market does, these would include the cost of policing marijuana stores to ensure they don't sell to minors and that they only sell legally-produced marijuana.

The costs of legalization would also include the "message" that legalization sends to young people. I personally don't believe this is a major cost because the government can send much more powerful and pervasive messages than this simply by holding a press conference and by adding to the drug education teachings that young people receive at school.

You'd also have to mention that legalization would dramatically lower the price of marijuana which (if marijuana were a normal product) would increase use. But you'd have to ask if increased use in itself is a bad thing? If people are substituting marijuana for alcohol (which kills 130,000 people in this country every year) then it's actually a good thing. One thing to add here is that the government makes a lot of money taxing alcohol, if people switch from alcohol to marijuana then this tax revenue is going to diminish. [however it'll probably be replaced by the taxes on the marijuana and anyway if people drink less then the costs to the country that alcohol's causing will also go down]

Another thing about the "increase use" theory that you have to mention is that marijuana is an inelastic product. That means that as its price moves up and down that demand really doesn't change much. We've seen ample evidence of this through the prohibition as the price has gone higher and higher but demand has remained the same. Because of this inelasticity use won't substantially increase due to the lower prices and in fact it may even fall due to minors having severely less access to it than what they do right now. When legal stores undercut the prices of the illegal drug dealers and cartels it'll force the illegal suppliers out of the market which will mean that all sales will be carded and the only place minors will be able to get marijuana will be from their parents and older friends - just like with alcohol and tobacco today.

The reason legal stores will be able to undercut the untaxed illegal suppliers prices is because the illegal suppliers require extra compensation to reward them for the risk they're taking in acting illegally. Because legal producers and suppliers aren't taking this risk they don't need to make as much money selling their product as the illegal suppliers do and so can undercut the illegal prices.

While you're on the "increased use" theory mention that marijuana has been widely used over the entire SEVENTY YEARS of the prohibition so we're already living with whatever harms long-term widespread marijuana use causes. 100 million people (a third of our country) have obtained and consumed marijuana during the prohibition, and every single day 6,000 people use marijuana for the first time. What problems is this long-term widespread marijuana use causing in society today? Any? Whatever it is it's NOT going to get any worse under legalization and it's not going to get any less by continuing prohibition.

I have to go now but I'll try to add some more costs and take a look at the benefits later today. GL man!

[clydec]

You not only have to look at the cost/benefit ratio as far as non-medicinal use goes (which is the only use hemp has been relegated to due to its prohibition) but to the cost/benefit analysis of some of the other 49,999 uses currently known.

Take medicinal use alone. Right now, we spend about 16% of GDP on health care. In 1900, each person spent about $5.00 a year on health care. BaylorUniversity couldn't find people to put in their hospital beds so they started this thing called Blue Cross. Pay $.50 now and you can get a bed in the future if needed.

Now, Big Pharma has an iron grip on our wallets. Imagine what we could do with the savings from eliminating just some of the lifetime prescriptions of pharmaceuticals. If legalization were incorporated into the Health Care Reform being currently debated, I for one would take the promise of savings a lot more seriously.

It's not about who pays Merck, but for what and how much we pay Merck. Let's open them up to providing some medicines of real benefit to people who need it rather than marketing lifestyle and maintenance drugs of marginal benefit.

Then there are the industrial and energy uses of hemp. The replacement of logging for paper with fields of hemp. More forests, more C-4 plants, less excess CO2 and less excuse to establish an artificial market for an element that is the basis of all life on this planet.

Oh, don't get me going.

[isimon]

take notes on the union and use those.

Im pretty sure the union brings up virtually every argument against prohibition.

[fezz5544]

You could talk about the Constitutional abuses that take place because of the hysteria caused by the drug war. For instance, only in the name of drugs can police raid homes on anonymous tips and initiate civil forfeiture to take all the victim's property whether or not he or she is convicted, or even accused, of a crime. There are so many ways for cops to get around the fourth and fifth amendments. Habeus Corpus doesn't apply in drug enforcement. Police spend much more looking for non-violent drug dealers than they do rapists and murderers because they steal the money they find. The penalties for drug violations are easily violations of the eighth amendment. Police can get a warrant to raid your home just for using too much electricity. That's what they call "probable cause" now. You can have your privacy invaded for doing something perfectly legal. Utility companies are now doing police duties (pitting private people against each other in witch hunt is how the Third Reich started). Doctors can be forced to violate doctor/patient confidentiality by giving urine test results to the police. Drug testing is a major fourth amendment assault.

The U.S. has 5% of the world's population, but 25% of its prisoners, thanks to the drug war. Millions of lives have been ruined by the drug war, but it hasn't made drugs any less available.

[420 High Times]

Please make me proud, go in and own that debate. Not even like your team but just you. Take up the whole time talking about pro cannabis information. And how prohibition is causing all the violence the other team/debater is probably going to blame weed for.

I never really did that good in school or put in much of an effort. (Gunna do better when I start college) But if I was ever given this chance in school I would have done so much research and destroyed everyone.

Watch the Union for good facts, search the web also. Bring in your facts to the class to show to everyone if they call BS on you. Structure your arguments into different pieces, dont just be all over the place if you know what I mean? Have a comeback for any questions they are going to ask you or false facts. They will probably just be spitting government propaganda at you to be honast.

Good Luck, Report how the debate goes? ........

[biggitybong]

when beer was legalized they taxed it and it also made insane amounts of jobs. imagine that. u can go to a restraunt and just sit there smokin a joint. anyways,i say legalize it and then tax it. i would rather do without the tax part but...you know.

[prez420]

I think the biggest reason for legalization would be the simple fact that cannabis has never killed a single person in the history of humanity. If I was u I would build a chart showing how many people die each year from alcohol OD, caffeine OD, nicotine OD, morphine OD, pharmaceutic drugs OD, water OD (yes you can die if you drink to much water), and cannabis OD. Seeing that zero next to cannabis will speak volumes because every other thing on that list will have hundreds if not millions while the evil cannabis plant has a whopping zero.


Although its really not that important because you can get these things from other sources. It would be wise to mention all the uses the cannabis/hemp plant has besides getting people high like cloth, paper, and fuel. Also a nice fact to throw out there is the fact that the US constitution is written on hemp paper. I would even go as far as to get several of the many quotes from our founding fathers about their use of cannabis/hemp. Also make sure you get quotes from the people that led the anti-pot movement so you can demonstrate how racism and personal greed is what drove those men to make cannabis illegal in the first place. There is no reason you should lose this debate if you go in there armed with the facts.

[THCBandito]

I hope this goes without saying, but as much as i support legalization, don't be high during this debate..

http://forum.grasscity.com/legalizat...uld-legal.html
High Time's top 10 reasons cannabis should be legal

http://forum.grasscity.com/legalizat...-cannabis.html
What everybody should know about cannabis