Should Weed Be Legal?

[OmarFW]

Well I would not know since I have never tried weed but I find that hard to believe. Every person I have ever know in my life that smoked weed was either very dumb or lazy even when they were not high. The smart ones must be very few if it's even possible that weed can make someone smarter. I will believe it when I see it. Weed is just like any other trend out there, most people start because someone they know does it and then they can't quit or they stop when everyone else does.

I would say that a person who is drunk would become 'dumb' in a more accurate sense since their cognition is impaired and they cannot make correct decisions.

A person high on weed however is not impaired at all; sometimes the exact opposite. The effects are extremely various depending on the person and type of marijuana but often people undergo a heightened use of their senses. Their inhibitions are lowered just like alcohol so it is not as hard to react to things they normally wouldn't, which is why you see people who are high giggling and laughing at seemingly not-so-funny things. That might seem 'dumb' but it is completely harmless so I don't see it as such. You wouldn't ever see a stoner running naked in traffic or crashing a car or doing other such dangerous things because weed more often provokes a desire to introspect rather than do physical activities. You would however see drunk people do that kind of dangerous stuff which is why I consider drunk people to be legitimately dumb.

There are of course the cases in which people buy weed from corrupt dealers and the weed is laced with other drugs in order to get the user addicted and coming back. This isn't common, but it happens and in that case the effects are obviously not going to be that of typical marijuana. This is another reason weed needs to legalized; to take it out of the hands of these dealers and put it into the hands of government regulated shops so this kind of thing can't happen.

The human body cannot become dependent on THC (the chemical in marijuana that gets you high) like it can with nicotine so marijuana is not physically addictive. This is not a matter of opinion, but a scientific fact. That is different than a mental dependency of course, which can be formed around anything but is not a danger to everybody. This is why for some people it is a 'gateway drug' in the sense that they move on to harder drugs because weed doesn't do it for them anymore. This is not however because they are physically addicted to the marijuana, but because they are mentally dependent on simply being high and some people can develop a tolerance for THC and therefore an immunity to weed over time, provoking a person who desires to be high constantly to go out and seek harder drugs. Again, this is only a danger for people who are prone to be co-dependent. At the same time, these people could just as easily develop a dependency on nicotine or alcohol which are readily available at any store so prohibiting weed does not take away this danger nor does it even prevent people from obtaining weed anyway. I've known plenty of people who have smoked the same amount of weed for the last 10 years and do not desire to do increasingly more and more, nor do they undergo withdrawl if they take a break from doing it for a while.

I am one of those kinds of people which is why I did not try weed until this year and found out that I do not enjoy the effects so I did not continue doing it.