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I have yet to hear a cogent argument against legalization.

I have a couple of pretty simple one (it's worth considering).

The long term affects of pot abuse are pretty easy to develop - I've seen medium-heavy users become fairly "brain dead" after several years of use. This is entirely from observation but it seems to occur faster than the same effect due to alcohol abuse. As a result we could see quite a few problems from more long term users.

It is also harder to determine if someone is under the influence. This would mean some industries would have to begin mandatory drug testing prior to performing sensitive work - random examples: doctors, pilots. That's costly, time consuming etc. And if the long term affects of the drug are as pronounced as I suspect you could see heavy abusers in those fields actually pass drug tests and still fail to concentrate at a critical moment.

It's certainly an area that needs a lot more research before legalization occurs.




But this presumes that keeping it illegal prevents people from using it, and it clearly doesn't.

Mandatory drug tests are common already (Home Depot does drug tests on all employees -- don't you feel safer about hardware?) People's performance are also impacted by stress, sleep deprivation, etc. - they should be monitored for performance, not blood chemistry.

>It's certainly an area that needs a lot more research before legalization occurs.

No it doesn't. It's safer than other existing legal drugs: http://www.saferchoice.org/content/view/24/53/

A gallery of loser stoners: http://coedmagazine.com/2009/02/06/the-10-most-successful-po...

And if it is a concern about people's health, why is it treated as a criminal matter?


People's performance are also impacted by stress, sleep deprivation, etc. - they should be monitored for performance, not blood chemistry.

Solid point. I can't disagree. Possibly the only issue worth raising is that cannabis influence may not be as physically obvious as those things you mention. For example a nurse may notice a brain surgeon is looking fatigued and raise concerns, but if on drugs his attention may wander at random moments which are not immediately obvious in the same way.




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