Haha, I know that was rather arcane. I was hoping another University debater might take the bait and decide to wade in, since the SDMB seems like their natural habitat.
Marijuana is typically smoked, and we are, societally, in the process of banning smoking. It’s no longer allowed in public indoor spaces, it’s being banned in some public outdoor spaces (playgrounds, around doorways), and even some private indoor spaces (e.g., charges filed against parents for smoking around newborns). Legalizing pot 1) has all the problems of smoking in general, and 2) works against legitimate efforts to limit/eliminate tobacco smoking.
Make your opponent defend marijuana by defending cigarettes. Insta-win.
I wish we had debate class in my school system. I would have absolutely loved it! The closest I got was the yearly Mock Trial competition, where I generally refused to be a witness because I wanted to be prosecution which was much more fun.
Part of the debate exercise involves anticipating the opponent’s arguments. Surely the opponents here will be prepared to counter old arguments like “gateway drug.” I think you really need to come at them from a different angle than all the mainstream arguments. After all, as far as I could tell, the most widely agreed upon public arguments offered against Prop. 19 were that this approach wasn’t the right way to go about legalization.
The best argument you could make is to show up stoned. 
There could be something to that. In California where it’s practically legal for anyone that really wants it, it almost seems to have reached a level of toleration by the mainstream. Not that the mainstream supports its use enthusiastically (it’s still technically illegal), but that the interest in enforcing the law seems to have diminished considerably. I generally follow this issue fairly closely, and the impression I get, as cannabis moves towards greater acceptability, is that it doesn’t merely get lumped in with all the other illegal drugs to the extent that it used to be.
Another sort of “out there” argument is that actually legalizing it would lead to a marijuana industry, perhaps not unlike the tobacco industry, who would proceed to spend zillions on advertising. Right now in places where it’s decriminalized (i.e. only civil penalties for use), people are relatively free to actually use it if they so chose, but there’s no companies trying to shove it down their throats.
If you wanted to get a little bombastic about it, you could point out that tobacco used to be something not unlike marijuana that was generally enjoyed infrequently and in moderation. Only when tobacco companies industrialized and started mass-producing cheap cigarettes did you get large numbers of honest-to-goodnes tobacco addicts (and lung cancer became a common ailment). Legalizing marijuana might have a similar effects, since I’m sure if you could probably mass-produce a joint for close to as little as a cigarette.
Obviously this is a bit of a weak argument since pot isn’t addictive like tobacco and is probably more analagous to alcohol which most of us don’t constantly consume. But I certainly know some folks who would be pack-a-day at least smokers if joints were as cheap as cigarettes. Perhaps a more likely situation would be tobacco companies start selling blended cigarettes, which would also encourage people to use marijuana on a more constant basis than they do now. Not to mention they might use more tobacco too.
Not sure how well this argument would work outside of California, but…
If your state–and your state alone–legalizes, you will be a magnet for stoners and the social baggage they tend to carry (i.e. more serious drug problems, inability to hold jobs, tedious conversations, lax grooming, etc.). This has been a serious problem for Amsterdam, which reappraised its dope policies recently. If it were legalized across the country, this would not be a big deal.
If you want to form an argument against legalizing cannabis, I think you need to start by looking at the reasons why the majority of public opinion seems to be against legalization. Why did the legalization initiative fail in California, really? You’d think that would be the one state of the Union where it would be a sure thing.
Despite what I’ve heard here, there are studies that say that it is addictive–whether they are valid or not. You also need to look at the social impact. Marijuana, when used chronically, does seem to limit ambition. People who actually stay on the drug do seem to not do a lot of other things–this is an argument used in many ads.
When all else fails…
“Not if your ambition is to get high and watch TV.”
– Melanie, Jackie Brown
Cancer from smoking
Cannaboid Schizoprenia, this is a big issue specially with youth suicide rates on the increase
Kills braincells
Rise in car accidents are all reasons.
If it’s not a “gateway drug” where did that idea come from? Did DARE pull it out their ass?
I don’t think “kills braincells” has any scientific backing whatsoever
I’m skeptical rise in car accidents has in any way been correlated with marijuana use, but maybe I’m wrong
Opening and Closing Opp!
Did Parli in college (the main style in the northeast); broke at Worlds in '97 (South Africa). Great fun.
Actually had the same role as the OP–but in World’s style you get the case and your position ten minutes before the round (so this would have been a Need Help Fast) question. As a Deadhead, you can imagine I wasn’t exactly happy opping the topic. My solution was to case-shift slightly and attack the legalization aspect of the gov’s proposition and argue why decriminalization was the much better option.
This helped take the round, because we were still arguing against legalization–yet it subsumed the gov’s strongest points. No one is going to jail for growing some for themselves, no one’s individual rights are being stepped on, etc. But at the same time, you’re not turning drug sales over to Phillip Morris. This is where the gateway drug arguments are actually much stronger. Trying to tell people that pot = the road to heroin is a tough sell, but saying that corporate pot profits will lead to increased marketing of pot (from product placement and beyond) and corporate interest in legalizing other drugs is a strong and viable line.
There’re more points to be made, but the general tack should give you an unexpected direction (always great to make gov sweat), a strong deconstruction of their case, and several independent points to leave out there. In effect, you can put the gov on the spot of arguing not why pot shouldn’t be a crime, but for giant agribusiness and corporate control/influence.
Partly, yes. For one thing, the trouble with this argument is you could say the same thing about alcohol, tobacco or even caffiene, in that people who use “harder” drugs almost without exception used those first.
But another important point is that the only reason why marijuana appears to be more of a gateway drug than any of the above is that you have to buy it from a drug dealer. Obviously this means you now know a drug dealer who can get you those harder drugs (and may encourage you in this direction), but also you have to cross the moral threshold of buying an illegal drug. If MJ were perfectly legal and you bought it at the corner store, those effects would be gone.
Not true in my experience. Before being aware of medical marijuana dispensaries I would only think of smoking. But with a wide variety of consumable product made available with predictable and trustworthy dosage guidelines, I find it now becoming preferable to take one of the many convenient consumables.
Legalization will easily mean we can take care of ourselves and don’t need them anymore. Marijuana grows easily and naturally all over the place in the US, in your small garden for instance, you could lazily find yourself with enough plants to take care of the years needs of dozens of casual pot smokers.