I wrote up this article for a class, and I figured I might as well share it with others. Please digg the story if you liked it! http://digg.com/educational/Top_7_Marijuana_Myths_Debunked
In this article you stated: "There is absolutely no convincing scientific evidence that marijuana causes psychological damage or mental illness" Are you sure about this...?
From the research I performed, I could not find any conclusive evidence to support that marijuana causes psychological or mental damage, although some do claim that it can bring out dormant traits of a illness.
I think we can all agree that marijuana use hurts other people no more(and probably less) than alcohol use. Alcohol is legal, therefore I think marijuana should be as well. In fact, alcohol is the biggest gateway drug. You can't restrict people from doing stuff that only hurts people who choose to be hurt- like the friends who worry, visit them in the hospital, etc etc. See, they're not physically/mentally being hurt by force, they're choosing to be hurt by choosing to worry about their friend. The only people being physically/mentally/socially harmed are the drug users themselves. Beyond that, it's not the user's fault that other people are being hurt, and so it's essentially a victimless crime. As far as I see it, victimless crimes arent crimes at all, so drugs(not just marijuana) should be legalized. I mean, still restrict to over 21, tax the hell out of it, and then let the idiots smoke if they want to. I won't even get into the plusses that'll come out of this- elimination of a black market, assurance of 'cleaner' drugs(without harmful additives), and possible destruction of many gangs that thrive on drug sales are all theoretical results.