Let's Fight using Logic, Semantics and Reasoning Skills

[Magical Monkey]

I used to have fun debating on this forum. Let's do it again.

Hence, I declare this the official debating thread! Anyone can nominate a topic or partake.

Rules:

• No ad hominems.
  
• Be nice. Accept that people will disagree with you.
  
• You aren't ever truly right. Learn that.
  
• Be eloquent, be calm, be graceful and be courteous.
  
• A person's belief/opinion/faith/affiliations do not define their character. Be aware of that.
  

First topic! Let's begin with something I've been wondering about: Is it right for marijuana to be legalised?

[streetbackguy]

Marijuana is pointless for people who don't need it, such as dumbasses who wear snapbacks and talk like wannabe gangsters. They don't know how to relax by using their common sense, so they have to rely on this supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Only people with serious medical conditions should use it to ease the pain, so no legalizing marijuana.

[Magical Monkey]

Marijuana is pointless for people who don't need it, such as dumbasses who wear snapbacks and talk like wannabe gangsters. They don't know how to relax by using their common sense, so they have to rely on this supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

So you're saying the use of drugs to relax is dumb, because one should "learn" how to relax? Would you say the same thing about alcohol or tabacco? Conversely, would you say that caffeine should be illegal because people should be able to perk up using their common sense?

If your only reason against marijuana is that people "don't need it", that rules out almost all (recreational) drugs used today, legal and illegal. It also rules out a lot of medicinal drugs such as paracetamol, because don't exactly "need it".

[streetbackguy]

Marijuana is pointless for people who don't need it, such as dumbasses who wear snapbacks and talk like wannabe gangsters. They don't know how to relax by using their common sense, so they have to rely on this supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

So you're saying the use of drugs to relax is dumb, because one should "learn" how to relax? Would you say the same thing about alcohol or tabacco? Conversely, would you say that caffeine should be illegal because people should be able to perk up using their common sense?

If your only reason against marijuana is that people "don't need it", that rules out almost all (recreational) drugs used today, legal and illegal. It also rules out a lot of medicinal drugs such as paracetamol, because don't exactly "need it".

All recreational drugs aren't necessary either, and alcohol and tobacco are a completely different story in my opinion, but that's just because they're more often used and consumed.

And that's right, people don't really need Marijuana unless they have severe injuries or disabilities, but people don't need paracetamol like you say yet that's pretty much fine because it helps to heal people from migraines and other such afflictions. And caffeine is not really an issue seeing as it hardly does any harm except when parents can't regulate their children's energy drink intake.

[Magical Monkey]

All recreational drugs aren't necessary either, and alcohol and tobacco are a completely different story in my opinion, but that's just because they're more often used and consumed.

How is tabacco and how is alcohol completely different stories? Traditional cultural values on recreational drugs, which translates to the amount of usage (I say "traditional", because the attitude is rapidly changing) shouldn't determine our laws. That's a little silly.

But apart from the amount of usage, which is largely tied to the legality (ie. legality = usage, illegality = less usage, so its a bit of a closed loop), how is alcohol and tabacco different, when they're used for almost exactly the same thing?

And caffeine is not really an issue seeing as it hardly does any harm except when parents can't regulate their children's energy drink intake.

Oh? On this comparison graph, the effects of caffeine and cannabis are quite close, with caffeine actually being more dangerous in the areas of withdrawal, addiction potential, dependance and lack of tolerance.



Granted, marijuana has slightly worse long term effects (I say slightly because heart arrhythmia, a chance of just dropping dead because of a heart attack and high blood pressure is still pretty bad), but alcohol and tabacco still defeats it in terms of long-term harm.

[streetbackguy]

I know Alcohol and Tobacco are more dangerous, but that's getting slightly off-topic here.

Right, so just because some people can't control their caffeine intake without supervision, you're automatically saying it's worse than marijuana? People who smoke marijuana claim that you're not physically or mentally addicted to it, but why do you think they keep going back to using it? They're addicted and they want more.

Caffeine on the other hand is good for keeping people awake when they need to be, such as if they need to stay up a bit longer to finish an essay or some important work that they have to do, and there are honestly less people addicted to caffeine than most other drugs out there, including marijuana.

(Some of you reading this might disagree with me, but it's just my own personal opinions and just like MM said in his first post, it doesn't define who I am and I don't believe I am 10% right. All just opinions and personal views.)

[Yukine]

My personal opinion is that marijuana use isn't going to stop, so why not legalise it in order to get at least part of it off the black market? Taxes placed on marijuana could also help out in the recession (though I won't really pretend to know how macroeconomy or taxes really work. It just makes sense to me that taxing something gives the state more money to pay off debts, yes?). Marijuana isn't much more dangerous than caffeine, as Monkey's graph just showed, though it should still be used responsibly of course and should definitely not be sold to minors.

Personally I see no reason why marijuana should be illegal when more dangerous drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are legal. For some reason people seem to think that because these are legal, they are 'safer', when in reality they're not.

Also there are places where marijuana cannot be used even for medical purposes, which I find to be bullshit.

[Iwwo]

At least where I used to live in, marijuana should be legalized, but regulated. It would deal with many of the "narcos" and marijuana taxes (as stated above) and purchases would help greatly to the (in this case mine, but any applies.) nation. But there should be specific places where to smoke it, "fumaderos", which would help the economy, due to money being invested on renting it, the taxes from it, etc.

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