CreateDebate is a social debate community built around ideas, discussion and democracy.
If this is your first time checking out a debate, here are some quick tips to help get you started:
Arguments with the highest score are displayed first.
Argument replies (both in favor and in opposition) are displayed below the original argument.
To follow along, you may find it helpful to show and hide the replies displayed below each argument.
To vote for an argument, use these icons:
You have the power to cast exactly one vote (either up or down) for each argument.
Once you vote, the icon will become grayed out and the argument's score will change.
Yes, you can change your vote.
Debate scores, side scores and tag scores are automatically calculated by an algorithm that primarily takes argument scores into account.
All scores are updated in real-time.
To learn more about the CreateDebate scoring system, check out the FAQ.
When you are ready to voice your opinion, use the Add Argument button to create an argument.
If you would like to address an existing argument, use the Support and Dispute link within that argument to create a new reply.
I can't let something take control of my actions for me. And I don't even know to what degree drugs do take control of your actions, but I suppose it's pretty big. I really can't afford to find out. I think the things I do under my own control are pretty stupid. I can't even imagine what I would be like on drugs.
Alcohol is the one that takes most control of your actions. I used to turn people on to weed and hallucinogens, and the reaction was always "Wait, why is this illegal?" Not to mention proven psych benefits :)
If it's illegal it should not be tolerated. If it is legal hey its your life, more success for us. That's partly why I'm such a big fan of capitalism.
Everyone has the opportunity to be successful, everyone has the opportunity to be healthy. If you don't want those things have fun doing whatever you want. (:
I'm gonna have to disagree with you on this one, Jake. There are good reasons to legalize weed. The biggest and most obvious reason is that it would decrease the stress and danger in law enforcement. That would just be one less thing officers would have to worry about. Their job is hard enough.
I say we treat marijuana as a mixture of the alcohol and smoking laws. No smoking in public places, like restaurants, bars, etc., and you can't drive or operate a motor vehicle while under the influence.
The government could also generate funds from small taxing, not spend millions and billions on enforcing laws that are always broken.
And I'm not for the legalization of marijuana solely because people break the laws anyway; it's just a logical thing to do.
I say we treat marijuana as a mixture of the alcohol and smoking laws. No smoking in public places, like restaurants, bars, etc., and you can't drive or operate a motor vehicle while under the influence.
The government could also generate funds from small taxing, not spend millions and billions on enforcing laws that are always broken.
You make a good point. I don't think any of those things should be legal. Yes, I know thats pretty unrealistic but I don't care.
If weed was legalized more people would drive high. Just like so many people drive drunk. How many less drunk drivers would there be if all of the alcohol companies didn't exist? The same with tobacco and lung cancer. Legalizing weed would just make things worse.
This is starting to piss me off. Based on something I said you are assuming that I am not a capitalist and not an individualist. That is not true, I am both of those things, and not a commie. See, I get to choose what I want to believe.
What, just because I am against some companies means I don't like capitalism? And because I support laws I am not and individualist?
Hmmm.. hey, I want to express individualism, how about I smoke weed! Nobody does that. I can be soo different.
an individualist believes that drugs should be legal. they don't HAVE to do them. I don't use them and would never consider it, but i believe that we are INDIVIDUALS who have civil liberties. if someone wants to smoke pot, they should have every right to do so.
That is true but our government needs money and more than 41% of people have tried pot in their lives. That means that the US government could tax more than 41 percent of the population at least once in their lives for smoking pot. Think of the money it would generate with the loss of expenditures on police that enforce those laws and the amount of tax dollars from a new product that 8% of the population under 25 smoke regularly!I am in the percentage that have never tried pot before but it seems like a good way to generate some money for our gov.
Yeah, i really don't need stupid shit to make me happier. seriously, i hang out with my friends who are high all the time and they get so fuckin' stupid. it's actually pretty funny to be the only sober one.
I hardly drink.
and any drug other than weed i don't even think about.
but people who love drugs so much really just assists with my misanthropy. and then the average fuck up asks for assistance.
but i still want drugs to be legalized mainly because i want social Darwinism to take its effect. that way, waaay less people will be breeding.
On the subject of Social Darwinism I like to think that the world needs the weaker people as well as the stronger people. Even if the weaker people cannot do everything as well as the stronger people can.
I actually know people who have smoked pot, and many kids who smoke cigarettes. They have even asked me if I wanted to smoke with them before, but I never have. :)
I like to decide on the things without anything blurring my head. I don't know what's people taking all those addictive like alcohol and drugs and pots, and do all those things they did. It's still better to live healthy without anything influencing the way you act and think.
I live above the influence of idiotic propaganda like this. These are all things people do when drunk, not high. Joseph Heller couldn't have written a situation more perversely backward.
Wish I could say I did but it is my choice. This is a stupid commercial. It shows none of the effects of marijuana. It is showing all of the effects of alcohol not drugs. Since when do people pass out from smoking to much ganja?
That's kind of a dumb commercial. Most of the things they named are from drinking not pot. I have never seen someone pass out from weed, but I have seen (and participated in) people getting drawn on when they were passed out drunk. Same with the calling exgirlfriend thing... it's much more likely to happen if your drunk.
As for the straight Ds part, some of the smartest people I know do pot. I even know two national merit scholars who do it. The whole weed makes you dumb thing is a myth.
I guess you can't expect the anti-marijuana people to know what the drug does.
What I find funniest about these videos is that they don't give any real reasons not to do weed. They don't talk about physical harm like the tobacco commercials, because weed does t hurt you. Their only strategy is to try to make weed seem uncool, which I guess is fine, but don't these people have something better to do with their lives? There are worse things out there than pot, and think about the causes that could really use the money spent on advertising.
Thats what I thought when I saw the commercial, it was funny though. Mary can kill brain cells but it takes a matter of 2 weeks to get them back =\ so that argument is pointless. Weed has more chemicals that tobacco so that is the physical harm. But what the video shows has almost nothing to do with weed. If someone is uneducated about weed I guess that the commercial would only make them not want to smoke pot more.
I do live above the influence of drugs but not alcohol =\ I am an athlete so I am not going to start smoking anything, besides I do not see the point in smoking weed all it does is make you happy for a short period of time,but in the long run it justs wastes money in my opinion of course.
Weed is not physicaly addictive like tobacco is but that doesn't mean that you cannot get addicted.
You must be hanging around some very stupid people. My uncle smoked weed so much it F*ed him up and he blew his brains out. It caused a permanent Psychosis similar to schizophrenia.
Right. You breathe the smoke in. Where do you think it goes? Not all of that is absorbed by your blood; that much of anything in the blood would kill you. You don't breathe it all back out; much of it is trapped in the lungs. Really, how many people truly believe that smoking weed is that much different than smoking cigarettes? True, weed does not have many of the toxic chemicals and stuff that kills you faster, but weed does have the smoke. Smoke + lung tissue = no thanks.
I never promoted cigarettes, and I really don't care whether or not you or anyone smokes marijuana. I don't think it's really that bad. But there are negative effects that you cannot ignore, and you didn't, you even said that it reduces lung capacity. I never said that marijuana causes or even increases the risk of lung cancer.
This debate is subjective. It hinges on the question whether or not you live 'above the influence.' As for me, yes, I do. I don't think you must, I don't think you should, and, guess what? I don't care whether you do or not. If you choose to do so, go ahead. Good for you. I don't want to.
Just because I used an equation to make a point doesn't mean you have to throw another one at me. I think we agree on many things, here. We're not enemies, and I have no reason to be hostile toward you, so let's be civil, please.
OK, nobody dies from marijuana in a year. I, personally, am for the legalization of marijuana. It really isn't that bad. I just don't find it that great.
I apologize if I seemed hostile.. Some issues I get passionate about and sometimes come off looking like an asshole. My only point was that cigarettes are a lot worse than weed. So once again I'm sorry.
Although it is true that smoking anything will reduce lung capacity, it would take smoking a lot for very long periods of time before there was any significant damage.
In addition, smoking marijuana does not cause lung cancer at all, and in fact may even reduce your chances of getting lung cancer (according to recent studies).
In addition smoking marijuana had been shown to be beneficial to brain development.
Although you might be technically correct, the harm to your health is so minor that someone who smokes only occasionally (like myself) doesn't have to worry. In addition there are other ways to get high with marijuana that don't involve smoking. Have you ever heard of space cakes?
How would smoking anything help reduce lung cancer or develop the brain? Show me the studies.
Have you ever heard of space cakes?
Yeah, thats why I said "smoking" because I knew you would try to go there. The fact is getting high can also be harmful to you. And hey, I know that a lot of things are and can be harmful but smoking weed is like going out of your way to harm yourself.
+ It is against the law, The opinion that something should be legal and breaking the law are two different things. The law should be respected. Anything otherwise is completely selfish and unpatriotic.
The fact is getting high can also be harmful to you.
Could you be more specific? In what way (other than hurting your lungs) is using marijuana harmful? You can't OD, so I fail to see the harm. I'm sure you wouldn't just make something up [;)] but I'm curious to see your source.
Also as an athlete I am very health conscious. If I thought doing pot occasionally would hurt my health, I would avoid it.
As for smoking marijuana being unAmerican, I would have to disagree. In Jamestown, the first successful English colony in America, hemp was grown as one of the crops. Our founding fathers agreed that cannabis that growing cannabis was important to our nations success and both Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington grew hemp (funny how we don't see that in the textbooks). In addition, those civil rights leaders who secured equal rights in the 1960's smoked weed. Even now, our current president, and greatest Olympian (so much for the bad for your health thing) smoked marijuana.
Our nation has a higher percentage of people who smoke marijuana than any nation in the world. At this point, we might as well put pot up there with apple pie, and baseball.
The specifics you gave deal almost entirely with psychological problems that come with marijuana... none of which apply to me, or to anyone I've met that does pot. In addition, it talks about people who smoke at least twice a month. I smoke significantly less.
I know that marijuana is illegal, yet the law does not make sense. When I smoke I am hurting no one, and a victimless crime isn't really a crime at all. Allow me to quote one of our former presidents:
Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.
-- Ronald Reagan
In addition, I do not follow laws out of fear from punishment. I follow laws because they are there to help society, and allow it to function by ensuring the protection and well being of it's citizens. In no way does my smoking pot, affect anyone other than myself, and therefore is not a law that I will follow.
Actually, one of the reasons marijuana was outlawed was because large companies, such as Dupont, wanted to get rid of hemp as competition. They used exaggerated claims about pot as a way to make sure hemp became illegal. So really, marijuana is illegal because of hemp, not the other way around.
As for recipes, you can put pot butter in any food as a substitute for butter. Try it at your next family gathering, sit back, and watch hilarity ensue ;).
Hey it's about time you start quoting Ronald Reagan.
Anyways, So just because you don't agree with the law you think that you shouldn't have to obey it? What makes you so special? hint; -your not that special
Teodoor Roosevelt: "No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it."
I don't think I'm special at all. I don't think anyone should obey such an irrational law. If no one is being hurt then who is the law meant to protect? The government doesnt have right to make such a law, and im going to refuse to awknowledge that right. The day I obey a law for the sole reason that it's a law is the day I've lost my freedom.
What's funny about that quote you gave, is that T.R. acted in exact opposition to that statement. Instead of asking permission from congress to aid a revolution in Panama against the Columbian government, he just sent in the troops. He did the same thing with the creation of national parks, and numerous other issues. Hypocrisy... Ain't it a bitch?
In addition, marijuana was still legal at that point in U.S. history.
To sumerize, I'm not above the law, but there are certain aspects of my life that the government has no right to control.
A lot of people obey that law, they obey it because they have respect for the law and for their body, and mostly because, "why start?" People who smoke marijuana are hurting themselves, little or not(and probably not as little as you think) they are.
"The government doesnt have right to make such a law"
Yes they do.
"The day I obey a law for the sole reason that it's a law is the day I've lost my freedom."
So, just clarifying, You have no respect for the law? Just for consequences?
"To sumerize, I'm not above the law, but there are certain aspects of my life that the government has no right to control."
That is exactly right, but the law however is something that the government has control of, so you better be ready for whatever consequences you are facing.
So Just clarifying, You have no respect for the law? Just the consequences?
Actually that's about the opposite of what I was saying. As I said in an earlier argument, I don't follow laws out of fear of punishment. I do what I know to be morally right, regardless of what the government decides is right. Lucky for me most laws make sense: murder rape and theft are wrong because they violate people's rights. Speeding and drunk driving endanger other people's lives. Contracts must be kept in order to allow the market to function properly. All of these are laws that make sense. Marijuana is illegal because...
It hurts people? Only myself, and only a small amount (you could have cited the study that shows a link between marijuana and testicular cancer if you wanted to find a reason why it's bad for your health).
It violates people's rights? No.
It is better for society? No, in fact, the prohibition of marijuana has had the same effect that alcohol prohibition did, because it gives criminal organizations a source of revenue, and puts extraordinary amounts of non-violent "criminals" in prison, wasting tax payer money.
So no, I am not motivated merely by consequences, but by my own moral standards and innate ability to logically determine right from wrong.
If I do get caught then I will obviously have to face the consequences.
If you're curious about the real reasons why marijuana was outlawed, please check out the link below.
NO. Even though I don't really think there is an "influence" in the sinister sense of this commercial.
I think drugs are a right of passage. People think they know themselves until they have had their foundations shaken a bit mentally. That's why I am a big advocate for pot and hallucinogens.
The know yourself part wasn't really about the drugs just a kind of motto, but since you replied I would venture to say that the forced perspective given by hallucinogen like LSD allows a type of insight into oneself, from my experience, that transcends normal realistic constrains of knowing. I have also seen buddhist monks liken the experience to the bliss of their meditations and such so there is an argument to be made for the point I didn't make.
If you get hooked on that stuff you are not much different that everyone els that is hooked on it. If you care about individuality be yourself. Not a druggie.
How is a pot or a hallucinogen going to open your mind? If anything that closes it to reality. Something that literally makes you stop thinking is not going to open your mind.
Just from your response I can tell you have no idea what you are talking about. You cannot get "hooked" on halucinogens. Studies have shown they have no inhernet addictive properties and it has actually been found in said studies to reverse addictive tendencies towards things like cigarettes after having taken certain substances.
What is reality? If reality is the interpretation my brain makes from my senses then I would say you have it backwards. Your mind is opened by halucinogens. Brain activity increases and the senses are freely manipulated by the brain. Nothing literally makes you stop think except death or a coma. Again, you don't know what you are talking about enough to even understand the different categories of drugs. Shit or get off the pot, my friend. Your indoctrination is showing.