Guess who wants to legalize pot?!?

[mrstickball]

Smithy RPG said:

I'm gonna go out of the usual crowd here and say this is terrible news. It really should stay illegal. Sure, it's not as bad as alcohol, but that doesn't make it right to just add more harmful stuff to life. I mean, the cons outweigh the pros. There will be more car crashes if it's legal. This is a fact because when people are high, their focus is obviously a lot worse, and thus will lead to more crashes. And even if it's illegal to smoke and drive, just like Drinking and Driving, people will still do it. How does this help my argument you may ask? People will smove and drive highly frequently; much more than nowadays since it's illegal. How many cases do you hear of MJ-induced accidents right now? Not nearly as much is Drinking problems. So by making it legal, you will just create a 2nd major accident causer, when it's really unnecissary to do such a thing.

Another thing is this will lead to more drugs being made legal. If this completely becomes legal, then people will get greedy and start demanding other drugs to be legal, since "this was made legal too". This will then lead to even worse drugs being made legal, which will thus ruin this country permanently.

Also, if you are around people who smoke MJ, you get a contact buzz, and what if I don't want to get high? I won't get to choose if I'm forced to be around a pot-smoker.

PS. No trolls or personal attacks. I want to have a clean discussion free of pointless attacks.

To counter your arguments (from a former anti-legal pot guy):

• By legalizing pot, you are not 'adding more harm to life'. In reality, you are taking it away. Legalizing things have a way of taking the thrill out of illicit acitivies. When Portugal legalized pot, their usage rates have gone down significantly. 
• The cons do in no way outweigh the pros. Give me a list of cons, and I will give you a far more robust list of pros.
  
• If we go the same way Portugal goes, there would be less car crashes from legalization, as fewer people would use the drug, as more help programs spring up as users and addicts will not have to seek help for something illegal.
  
• There is no proof that making pot, or any drug for that matter, legal equates to more usage among the populace. In countries that have legalized drugs, rates go down, not up.
  
• You'll get a contact buzz around people that use the drug right now, even though it is illegal. That will not change if its legal or not.
  

I'll post a list of advantages concerning legalization later tonight. Sufficive to say, there are so many benefits from legalization, that it outweighs the percieved cons of it.