#2. Alcohol and Tobacco are Worse, and They're Legal!
Yep, booze and cigarettes are pretty fucking bad for you. Deadly, even, if they're abused. Hell, I had a doctor tell me straight up that if I didn't quit drinking entirely, I'd be dead within the next five years. I've never heard a doctor tell someone that about their weed smoking. Drunk driving and smoking-related lung cancer have literally killed millions.
In fact, here's a not-at-all-retarded rebuttal from a legalization advocate in response to a "Foundation for a Drug-Free World" pamphlet that claims pot is more dangerous than alcohol. In case you didn't read that, it's exactly what you'd expect from a site that runs its articles over a background of marijuana leaf gifs, versus a highly generalized and exaggerated claim from an organization that is obviously anti-pot. The argument being, "Pot is worse than booze!" "Nuh-uh, alcohol is worse!"
But here's the thing about that entire debate: It doesn't fucking matter.
Throwing out death tolls from tobacco smoke, drunk driving and liver disease makes perfect sense as an argument for making those things illegal. It makes zero sense when trying to convince somebody to make pot legal.
Don't you understand that "It will kill fewer people than cigarettes!" could apply to fucking anything? You could pass a law that lets 12 year olds carry concealed guns to school and it'd kill fewer people than drunk driving.
If the argument is that pot is the safer choice, then by that rationale, it's also safer than deep-throating a cactus or mouth-fucking a rattlesnake. Is someone obligating you to choose between the two? There's not a third option of just not doing either of them? That has baffled me for years, and I still don't understand it. But I've heard it. A lot. As if the legalization of one unhealthy activity obligates us to legalize every single thing that's less lethal than that.
You have to remember that the people who have the power to change these laws are old, rich, stuffy white guys who for the most part don't smoke weed. When they hear rebuttals like this, they're picturing a six year old kid stomping his foot and screaming at his mother, "Why can't I play that game? Jimmy's mom lets him play GTA, and that's way worse!" The end result is still that you're arguing for the right to make things worse than they were before.
Read more: 5 Pro-Marijuana Arguments That Aren't Helping | Cracked.com
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-pro-marijuana-arguments-that-arent-helping_p2/#ixzz1Rwp1RuV3
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