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5 votes
Apr 2, 2015

It will not be immediate, but Marijuana is believed to change the brains growth and Chemistry. This will influence and destroy the person for all their life. As with heavy drinkers who's brain chemistry changes and they change and become violent or unhinged. This can easily start to happen with heavy MJ users. Because of the desire the next high or the drug that can give them a better high. Legalization has already been linked to higher crime rates in other countries. Could that happen here?

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2 votes,
Apr 2, 2015

>As with heavy drinkers who's brain chemistry changes and they change and become violent or unhinged.

Alcohol and cannabis have completely different effects on the brain. Stating that heavy smokers will end up like heavy drinkers is completely ungrounded in reality.

>Because of the desire the next high or the drug that can give them a better high.

There is no such thing as a gateway drug. Cannabis users are not going to start smoking crack for a better high.

>Legalization has already been linked to higher crime rates in other countries.

This is completely false. In fact, the opposite is true. Crime rates fall where cannabis is made legal, since people smoking a little cannabis every now and then are no longer prosecuted and people are able to sell legally instead of through the black market.

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5 votes,
Apr 2, 2015

Marijuana is believed to change the brains growth and Chemistry. This will influence and destroy the person for all their life. As with heavy drinkers who's brain chemistry changes and they change and become violent or unhinged.

Everything affects brain chemistry. If that's going to be the bar by which we make substances illegal, we're going to have a bad time. Even the most recent study on cannabis use in the Journal of Neuroscience, the findings describe structural changes in the amygdala and conclude with a call for more research as it is not know what these changes actually mean.

This can easily start to happen with heavy MJ users.

There is another thing that causes structural changes in the amygdala -- regular exercise. I'd be hard pressed to find a study that links regular exercise with increased 'violence or unhinging.' Just because something affects the brain, doesn't mean it's always going to be a bad thing. An individual suffering from involuntary muscle spasms or frequent seizures would find brain manipulating substances a god-send -- as they often do -- often with cannabis.

Legalization has already been linked to higher crime rates in other countries.

This is patently untrue. Netherlands has some of the most lax cannabis regulation in world -- last year they closed eight prisons because they ran out of prisoners.

Could that happen here?

I'd love it if it did. Running out of prisoners is something every country should aspire to. Also, a 2014 paper in PlosONE by RG Morris conclude the following on loosening marijuana restrictions:

"Results did not indicate a crime exacerbating effect of MML (Medical Marijuana Legalization) on any of the Part I offenses. Alternatively, state MML may be correlated with a reduction in homicide and assault rates, net of other covariates."

edit: spelling

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0 votes,
Apr 2, 2015

Running out of prisoners is something every country should aspire to.

No, it isn't. We need more prisoners, not less. How are private prison corporations supposed to earn ever-greater profits if there's less prisoners? Why do you hate capitalism, and want to punish success?

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0 votes,
Apr 2, 2015

I guess you've got all us lib-comm-nazis pegged. We just hate success so much.

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100
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5 votes,
Apr 2, 2015

Legalisation is likely to significantly decrease crime. At the moment, the sheer fact of it being illegal means that anyone caught with any quantity or even paraphernalia is almost automatically guilty of a crime (less so if you are white), and the jails are full of many people in this category.

Hence legilisation will immediately eliminate this complete group from the category of "criminals", thereby allowing them to get jobs without the stigma of being a criminal forever on their record, allow them to vote, and keep them out of the prison system which rarely rehabilitates or retrains people, it mainly just releases people who have been hardened into full time criminals by their experience, destroying their complete future.

Most international research shows some long term effects from high usage, but most of those are of laziness and lethargy, not increased violence as with alcohol or many harder drugs, and that same research shows a decrease in transference to harder drugs when MJ is more socially available and acceptable..

When MJ is legal to grow, sell or buy, and able to be quality controlled, taxed etc, that removes it from the hands of the existing criminal gangs who tend to control and deal it, reducing their size, their income and their influence. It also removes potential customers from being forced to interact with gangs and other criminals, further reducing being dragged into anti-social endeavors.

There will always be some people who abuse themselves with excess drugs. The good thing is that it is impossible to overdose on MJ, it is impossible to kill yourself with MJ, the worst physical damage is that it might increase your longterm chances of getting lung cancer.

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100
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2 votes,
Apr 2, 2015

Nonsense . In Portugal where it is legal use has gone down .

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1 vote,
Apr 2, 2015

If you are equating marijuana use with alcohol use, wouldn't you conclude that the law should treat them equally?

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User voted No, it will decrease crime.
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0 votes,
Aug 7, 2016

You're assuming that legalization will not only meaningfully increase use, as if it's really that hard for most people who want to get weed to get it, but also will prevent rehabilitation programs. The opposite is true: legalized marijuana will make it far easier for people to get help for drug addiction.

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