Originally Posted by
darkwarrior42
Look at the post I quoted of yours. You quoted Alenarian who said "Completely harmless too, yeah? Science doesn't really agree with you." You responded with "There are 0 recorded deaths due to THC/cannabis. Mind replying with something to counter that rather than throwing out strawmen?". I responded to your direct statement with the sources I linked, and the implied statement you were making with my following paragraph. In later posts you did in fact admit that Marijuana is completely harmless, but those posts were written as I was posting mine. In none of the posts preceding the one I quoted, which was the last one I read before making my post, did you say that Marijuana is not harmless.
Before leaping down my throat with your "Strawmen" line again, try considering the implications of the post I was actually responding to. When you respond to someone saying "Marijuana is not harmless" with "it has caused zero deaths", there are two possible implications: that you believe marijuana is harmless because it hasn't killed anyone, or that you acknowledge that it's potentially harmful but not as bad as other drugs which to lead to deaths. Based on the posts you had made up to that point, I assumed you were making the former implication. Clearly, you meant the latter... so for making an incorrect deduction based on what you had said up to that point, I apologize.
I never once said that the government is a moral authority, nor will I ever say such a thing. If I were the type to be offended in threads like this, I would be highly offended that you would even suggest such a belief on my part. Legality and morality are not in any way related. I linked four sources, only two of which were governmental inherently, as sources of other information. Of the sites you link, the best is cdc.gov, not because the government is a moral authority, but because they have little reason to lie (medicalmarijuana.procon.org is going to be as biased in favor of marijuana as drugwatch.org is against; I linked those sources only because they were easy to find.)
The only thing that you said that I set out to directly refute was that Marijuana has caused no deaths. Small sample size doesn't change the fact that you made an absolute statement; it would take only a single death to prove your statement wrong.
So, what do we have left? We both agree that Marijuana is less harmful than toboacco or alcohol, but is still potentially harmful. We both agree that it's less physically addictive than alcohol and tobacco, and in fact is less addictive even than caffeine. Given that I had already stated my position in support of legalization, I'm not really sure what's left that we disagree on, other than whether or not Marijuana has caused any deaths.
Edit: I suppose my philosophical/personal beliefs against using such things would be a point of disagreement, but as I don't expect others to abide by beliefs/philosophies I hardly think that counts.
(Mostly, I hate absolute statements like "Marijuana has caused zero deaths", because in general they're unlikely to be true. If you had said "Marijuana has caused fewer deaths than either Tobacco or Alcohol", I probably wouldn't have blinked an eye.)