Many people have been victims in the War on Drugs. The cost of the war clearly outweighs the cost of drugs on society. ('Cost' as in every way - financial and moral). Read the page I'm linking to.

First of all, making blanket statements about an entire group of people (that includes our President) makes YOU an idiot. Secondly, if it were completely legal, priced and taxed similar to tobacco (which is HEAVILY taxed), it would be a drop in the bucket. I would love to pay for pot what tobacco smokers pay for tobacco.

Currently, obviously, cannabis is illegal. Currently, also, cannabis is a gateway drug because the same people that end up handling it, handle other hard core drugs. If it were legal, those people would have no desire to traffic marijuana because there would be no underground market (like there is no underground market for tobacco and alcohol). Therefore, marijuana would no longer be a gateway drug.

Making the argument that marijuana legalization would lead to Meth legalization, and THATS why we shouldn't legalize is pretty poor. Especially considering you have no references or evidence.

Ok, so in what ways would their difference make a comparison not worthwhile? You can't just make statements without any sort of supporting statements and/or references.

Comparing the results in one society gives us plenty of information about what could happen in another. It's extremely common to do so. The Dutch are, after all, human like the rest of us, no?

Check out this reference.

From the Time Article:

"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."

Well, I would almost agree with that, but then that creates a huge black market all over again that is completely unregulated. People will be harming themselves with dirty alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs because of lack of regulation on these substances. It's currently a problem with cannabis because it's illegal.

You are on the right track though, making them illegal is definately the wrong way to go about it.

We do it because we enjoy it. The same applies to watching tv, exercise, drinking tea, etc. We don't have to do it and often go long periods of time without smoking it.

Ah, your an idiot. Ok, gotcha. :)

As long as we're clear.

Not all candy, soda, etc. has high fructose corn syrup, BTW. Not all tea contains Caffeine, either.

I highly doubt you're claim to have never consumed a single thing for pleasure.

And if it IS true - then you are completely insane anyway.

It has: smoking cigarettes has a much more harmful effect, statistically then smoking pot. And yeah, there are many, many ways to consume cannabis. You can smoke it, vape it, eat it, and spray it. The last 3 have 0 harmful side effects.

Your pretty ignorant, then. Many people brew their own beer and other alcohol (even wine) - far more often then any one person growing pot. They sell kits at grocery stores for doing it.

I have to put Oppose, but only because your tagged as Continue the war on drugs. That video is great. It has very beautiful imagery.