Debate: Should Marijuana be Legalized?

By Glenn & Jake 

Today is April 20th, 2010, also known as "4/20" in head shops and dorm rooms across America. 4:20 has become synonymous with smoking marijuana and the debate over whether to welcome marijuana into the annals of legalized drugs has become a hot button issue in both America and California. There is a stigma surrounding pot that may not be fair to the drug, but does that mean it should be legalized and given to children upon entering first grade? Or should the government stop investigating Al Qaeda cells around the world and instead devote those resources to arresting people who smoke a joint because they're dying of cancer? Fortunately these are not the only two positions to take, but they are two of the best. Jake and Glenn will now attempt to clear the haze surrounding marijuana legalization.

Glenn: I cannot support marijuana legalization and fear for the fate of our country if California passes their proposition in November to do so. Marijuana is a drug that distorts a person's sense of time and space. It is addictive. It is expensive. Marijuana, if legalized, would instantly be smoked by children as young as embryo as a way to "relax from their problems." I do not want our youngest, and thus most innocent, Americans corrupted by a drug that will make them so hungry and so into drug culture. Tommy Chong should not be a candidate for US Senate but if this country embraces marijuana as it has embraced professional wrestling we are sure to have another Jesse Ventura or Linda McMahon situation on our hands. I want marijuana to stay banned and the WWE to be outlawed. Thank you.

Jake: If the WWE was outlawed only outlaws would be in the WWE. Is that really what we want? It is not and neither is illegal marijuana. Pot is less dangerous than riding in a car, and that's a fact. Cigarettes are legal and everybody I have ever known has died because of smoking them. I have yet to meet a person who has died from "puffing on a reefer" and I work at a morgue. Cannibus has done nothing but good for our society from the jewelry that is created from the rope form of the drug to the song "Jump" by Van Halen, which was written by a stoned Sammy Hagar. If anything, it should be illegal to not smoke it. If I were President Obama, I would appoint Tommy Chong to the Supreme Court.

Glenn: Even a far-left group like the American Bar Association will not support Tommy Chong; plus it is a well-known fact Obama was elected President to gently nudge the court towards unrestrained executive power. Speaking of unrestrained, that is exactly the kind of America you and pro-pot advocates want. As famous philosopher Thomas Hobbes said, humans are inherently awful people that need rules in order to improve their lives. Part of being a member of society is consenting to the rules that comprise it and one of our rules is that marijuana is forbidden. This is how it has always has been, with the earliest recorded prohibition against drugs found in Leviticus Chapter 4: Verse 20. If everything that made people happy was legal, our police would have nothing to do. There would be no crime. Bob Dylan once said "People have a lot of forks and knives and they gotta cut something." We have a lot of prisons and we have to fill them with something - what better than nonviolent drug users?

Jake: The problem with imprisoning anybody caught toking up a j is that we have to pay to house and feed them. Teabaggers are not happy about this and demand that marijuana be legalized immediately. In fact, there was a huge march in DC yesterday for marijuana rights that was organized by conservatives. If everybody seems to want pot legalized then who am I to slap the bong out of their mouths? Just think about the positive effect it would have on the legitimate economy if we take this "shit" off the black market. Instead of some third-rate schwag slinger installing some 22's on his car, we could have CEO's of marijuana companies using the profits they make to take corporate jets and give each other huge bonuses. You know what happens to the drug dealer? He dies in a car accident on the way to rape a 16-year-old high school girl. If you're against legalization then you support the rape of our great nation's young women.

Glenn: I'm not sure how you connected my position - the only one that would protect young men AND women from the scourge of marijuana - to one that would harm them, but I am offended nonetheless. I haven't been this offended since the last time a "stoner" offered to sell me drugs so I could "relax." I detest all that comprises marijuana culture. From Kottonmouth Kings to Bob Marley flags to killing your girlfriend and eating her liver, it all makes me sicker than getting a contact high while I'm trying to do my taxes. You make the argument that if marijuana was legalized, all of these two bit dealers would start paying taxes. This could be true, but wouldn't we say the same with murder for hire and abortion? Just because they would bring in more revenue doesn't mean they should be legal. California needs to balance its budget the old fashioned way: cutting education like a pot junkie cuts her wrists after the "most intense high" she's ever experienced.

Jake: If the US were to legalize marijuana there would be more job opportunities. Candy would be higher in demand. Glenn would have you believe that candy is only for children, but he's too busy seething with anger from watching Celebrity Disc Golf on ESPN2. Candy is for everybody and Glenn's addiction to Sour Patch Kids tells that tale exquisitely. We have nothing to lose if we make grass legal. Our overcrowded prisons would be relieved, we would enter a new era of creative snack foods, Cheech Marin would be granted citizenship and Boomerang would become the most watched TV channel. This may not be the world Glenn and his fat cat friends want to live in, but it's better than what we have now.