He has to say yes, otherwise his opinions on the subject will be completely discredited.

Not as rare as you'd think. I had two friends hospitalised. They were both subsequently diagnosed with schizophrenia but who knows what role marijuana had in the emergence of their symptoms. I know that whenever they give in to temptation and start smoking again they will very quickly relapse into a psychotic state.

Ah, well that's it right there. Psychoactive substances tend to encourage people pre-disposed to conditions like schizophrenia to show symptoms. Drugs aren't for everybody.

i'm one of those where weed brought out my secret schizophrenia

^ Shrooms did that for me.

I know weed can do that. But alcohol can also bring out peoples inner raging lunatic, and I think that's a little more common.

any kind of smoke drives my sinuses crazy and I get massive nosebleeds that being said I really do think its fine and should be legalized. I believe it by next generation it probably will be in the US

Wow, it's nice to see someone acknowledge that there are potentially very real and harmful side effects to pot smoking. It's like the myth that it is harmless is being religiously perpetuated by every user out there.

I believe the most common problem for people who have smoked is anxiety, but as you mention, there are other possibilities. I know there was a recently a documentary on the telly about the link between cannabis and schizophrenia, but I did not watch it. Possibly I'll have to see if I can dig that up again. Many other studies have shown cannabis to be a schizophrenia risk factor (example), but it's like users don't want to acknowledge their existence.

I don't really believe in the "alcohol is okay so why shouldn't cannabis be?" argument because I figure you should look at the effect cannabis legalization has on society and try and decide based on that, regardless of whether or not we like alcohol. If alcohol is bad, should that justify the legalization of another bad? What kind of thinking is that?

Still, people love to justify legalization of alcohol by comparing it to cannabis. It's true, alcohol causes a lot of ****, but at least its effects are more predictable. The thing about cannabis is you don't necessarily know before smoking if it's gonna make you sick or not.

Regardless, if it's better for american society to legalize, I'd be behind that. Perhaps it is. From here, seeing how it's been tackled so far in the US seems to be the most ridiculous part of it. Locking smokers up with hard boiled criminals so that they can have a much worse impact on society once they come out sounds like the stupidest thing you could do. The american idea of prison as a place of punishment is really old and really doesn't do the nation any good. In my opinion, someone who has done jail time should be changed into a better citizen when he comes out, not a worse one. In the long run that's cheaper on society than having prisons bursting at the seams with repeat offenders.

edit :

Of course, if it does become legal, they should put "may trigger anxiety or schizophrenia" on the packets, just like cigs have the lung cancer warning. ;)

If people have the right to drink alcohol then we should also have the right to smoke weed. I understand the, "why should we legalize another harmful substance?" point of view. But, **** that. If marijuana is illegal then alcohol should be as well. If we really want to better society, keeping marijuana illegal isn't the way to do it. If we really want to better society then we would add alcohol to that list of illegal substances. Especially when you consider alcohol is much more harmful than marijuana. The reasons for the legal statuses of marijuana and alcohol clearly have nothing to do with peoples rights or the harm the substances can cause.

So the effect legalization has on society is not really important. It's about principle? If you legalize one bad thing, you have to allow another just because? I'm glad I don't live in a nation ruled by you, blastingas.

In my opinion, consequences and not principles are always the important thing. You want the best long-term consequences. If that's legalization, go for it - if not, then don't.

I didn't say that. It doesn't even have to be legalized, decriminalized is just fine. My point is if you want to smoke some weed, you should have every right to do so and shouldn't be considered a criminal. Until your weed smoking causes harm to anyone else, then it shouldn't be a problem at all.

Anyway, when your country is in as much debt as America, it doesn't make much sense to continue spending over 40 billion dollars a year on the war on pot. It's such a waste of taxpayers money. Keeping it illegal is hurting America a lot more than it's helping. It's not really helping anything.