Afterm4th said:
To the people who say pot is more harmfull to society than marijuana, I say you're mislead.
Are we? Now, of course I totally agree with you that marijuana itself as a drug is much less harmful to an individual than PCP, and pretty much any other drug. But marijuana and its users do not live in a vaccuum. They live in society, and the fact is that it's illegal. Because of this, unfortunately, a number of people get involved with crime in order to distribute it. Because so many people are willing to pay for it, huge organized crime networks exist to move it. When dealing with such huge quantities, very serious crime such as killings occur. In addition, governments end up spending tremendous amounts of money, of taxpayer money, to "combat" it, and to lock up millions of people, most of whom were doing nothing wrong aside from smoking it or distributing it to friends. This, too, costs a tremendous amount of taxpayer money, in court costs and the cost to keep people in jail alive. On the other hand, PCP is used by, in comparison, very, very few people, so although the rate of crime surrounding it
per user is greater than for weed, the total cost to society is much higher for weed.
Afterm4th said:
The only reason pot has harmed society is because of the fact that it is illigal. If marijuana were legal then marijuana would be less harmfull to society than tobacco or alcohol.
I also entirely agree with this. It's a damn shame that marijuana, or any drugs at all, are illegal. Unfortunately the government does not see it this way, and as it stands, whether or not it's right, marijuana has caused a greater measurable amount of harm, in terms of crime and taxpayer money spent "dealing" (8)) with it.
So bascially I agree with what you're saying, but I'm just trying to say that I think what people were trying to say was what I just said. The actual amount of harm caused by marijuana has been greater than the actual harm caused by PCP.