THC in marijuana actually fights cancer cells, and, according to a study done in Spain, could possibly be used to fight brain cancer cells. It gives them the munchies... literally makes them eat themselves.

I'ma throw up some sources for you to read (short and sweet). They're pretty interesting. In short, Marijuana is FAR less damaging then tobacco.

http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/factsmyths/#tobacco (Reading around the rest of the page should yield some interesting other discoveries if you're unfamiliar)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729.html

Cannabis is a natural healing herb. It poses minimal threat to ones health, contrary to popular belief. The majority of the crap going around about the negative effects of marijuana is speculation and/or pertains to terminally ill patients (such as AIDs and HIV patients) with incredibly degraded immune systems and abstract diseases.

Here's a link, btw, to a news article pertaining to Spain's test results: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/cancer/articles/2009/04/01/active-ingredient-in-marijuana-kills-brain-cancer.html

My aunt smoked pot all her life and ended up getting breast cancer despite having no genetic markers for it...

There are several ways of consuming marijuana that don't involve smoking it, which would remove any negative effects involved in smoking [anything].

I've eaten cereal every day for breakfast for many years and developed asthma despite having no family history of it. They could be related, but it's not reasonable to make such an assumption.

In all honesty, this isn't important. There are far greater things like tax cuts expiring and obama's health care taxes coming into effect that are more worrisome than this. :/

Oh go bawwww about your rich-person tax hike somewhere else, this is a pothead topic.

cue amusement at tifreak8x being described as a "rich-person"

Hahah, I was going to say the same exact thing XD

I never said he was rich, only the people affected by the tax hikes he's referring to. This is, however irrelevant, as this is a topic about the legalization of marijuana and the effects of it, not for people to bawwwww about how the top 2% are gonna have to pay more taxes next year.

To get back on topic, I've heard of numerous studies linking marijuana abuse with development of cancer. However I should discuss this more with my friend, who's currently studying in college how this type of external stimuli can cause cancer, before jumping to any conclusions.

Most definitely. I'm interested in hearing what you have to say about it. Again, the only major studies I've found have almost all referred to patients with certain diseases, abstract illnesses, and immune system deficiencies. All other studies state that they either have no affect at all, or actually help prevent and fight cancer (surprisingly).

It is definitely understandable for any type of substance being smoked to upset and cause damage to the lungs, even if incredibly minimal (as suggested). And, I have to play devils advocate here: If cigarettes and alcohol are legalized, which are all far worse for one's health, and cannabis is not as dangerous, then why not legalize Mary? Of course, if($Mary==array('illegal','healthier')) { $all->illegalize() } would be logical.

Abuse of the sun will give you skin cancer. Abuse of fatty foods will give you heart attacks. Abuse of being a dick will get you punched in the throat. Hell, abuse of water will cause you to drown.

The problem is abusing substances, not necessarily the substances themselves (which can even be healthy to a point)

This.

It's ridiculously difficult to argue something like this when a major portion of the counter-arguments attack using supporting details regarding the abuse of a substance or requiring abstract conditions. And hell, in this case the abuse of marijuana has already proven to be immensely more healthy for you then cigarettes and alcohol.

Like I said before, cannabis is a natural healing herb. One that has even been proven to cause cancer cells to self-digest without affecting healthy cells. And... this is still illegal why?

CA is bankrupt, so finding a new source of revenue, not morality, is their main objective here.
regardless, however, i tend to get pissed when the law starts telling me what i can and can't do to my own body. true, THC does have decision altering effects which could influence somebody other than myself, but looking at what is available already on the market shows that the public and government obviously do not care and the choice is one of personal preference as a result of habit. if highly addictive drugs like tobacco or caffeine are already so widespread where is the harm in introducing a drug that is both healthier and more fun?

However, one must take into account that marijuana being illegal makes it "cool," and as soon as it's legal, teenagers will have to resort to other things to be "cool," like cocaine XD.

You might actually have a point here...

I've also heard that federal law-enforcement will be compromised if an individual state like CA legalizes a drug the federal government still recognizes as a narcotic.

Indeed, shmibs, you make an excellent point.

DShiznit, I can definitely see that. Technically a State can do what ever it wants. The US just supplies funding for certain states that do what the US Gov wants them to do. If CA legalizes, it will probably lose a bit of funding. But with the amount of money they should gain from all of it, the funding they may lose from the US Gov shouldn't be detrimental, which I'm sure is a red flag to the US Gov.

It's not the state law enforcement that gets hurt, it's federal regulators who now need to deal with multiple sets of rules.

This is good topic with a lot of good viewpoints; so I wanted to share mine.

When it comes legalizing Marijuana I am a little bit torn. One side of me wants it to remain illegal, but my Libertarian side of me wants the Federal government to just butt out.

When I was 15 years old, I experimented with Marijuana once. It was something that came back to haunt me several times throughout my adult life.

When I joined the US Navy back in 1990, I was coerced (through my own guilt) into divulging that tidbit of information. And again when I had to apply for a top secret security clearance. And again... And again... and again. And still again when I was hired on at Lockheed Martin.

It was not something I was particularly proud of. Unless you are a good liar, this type of experimentation (or whatever you want to call it) will come back to haunt you. I always just wanted to forget about this part of my life; but real life situations tend to make you re-live experiences. You could say my conscience got the best of me.

So please think about the careers you want to pursue in life before making any potential bad judgments during your younger years.

Against my more conservative viewpoints, I would vote to have Marijuana legalized. But even with my life experiences, I would still allow businesses/corporations the right to make a judgment on whether or not to hire an individual base upon their recreational drug and/or alcohol usage.

tr;dr

one episode of Family Guy had Hemp (Weed) legalized, and Lois' father got nasty because it was cutting into his paper business (hemp being used to make paper)

ya think if Marijuana is legalized its gonna happen in real life like it did in the show (certain people pushing for re-illegalizing it due to it cutting into their profits for things that hemp can be used to for cheaper, like paper)

Wow, way to show a total lack of respect for his heartfelt story and well-thought-out opinion. Nice job being a douche.

I'm sure there are plenty of political and economic motives on both sides of the argument, although I have no idea what they are specifically.

An excellent piece of advice, and backed up by quite an impressive career path in my humble (EE) opinion.

Dontar, I apologize if I was a bit too wordy -- I tried to keep it as short as possible. I just had to get my thoughts out on this touchy subject.

This is the facebook/twitter generation where nobody reads more than one paragraph.

But more importantly, it's spelled 'tl;dr'