A senior at the University of Kentucky Murray State University penned this opinion piece for a “face-off” in the issue of marijuana:

Face Off: Should Marijuana be Legalized? No – Opinion
We have all heard the arguments: God made marijuana, man made alcohol – who are you going to trust? Who has ever heard of anyone overdosing on marijuana? It doesn’t have any adverse affects on society.

I would argue that these statements are sheer ignorance, in its purest form. Overall the legalization of marijuana (for public use) is something that should not be entertained. Marijuana is a drug. It is a substance that alters the inhibitions of an individual on a level different than alcohol.

It certainly does.  Like, alcohol is at about a “level 10″ and marijuana is at about a “level 1″.  Somebody who thinks that someone on marijuana has their inhibitions lowered to any degree even resembling alcohol is someone who has either never drank alcohol or never smoked pot.

Marijuana is a hallucinogen, whereas alcohol just inhibits an individual from acting coherently. Marijuana has the same affect, but at times you will see things that are not present (i.e. the definition of a hallucinogen).

Obviously never smoked pot.  Even the Drug Czar doesn’t consider pot a hallucinogen.

Also, as the saying goes, marijuana is the gateway drug. With marijuana being the gateway drug, it has the potential to have a downward spiral affect on humanity. If this drug were legalized, how much longer will it be before people begin to say we should legalize ecstasy, opium or even cocaine? If we look at the logical progression, that would send out society into mass hysteria.

Even the government doesn’t buy the gateway theory anymore.  If I progress through drugs A, B, C, D, and on to E, it doesn’t necessarily follow that A caused E.  Furthermore, marijuana only gets called a “gateway” because it is illegal.  If drugs A through E were caffeine, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, respectively, you wouldn’t be calling caffeine a “gateway”, you’d call marijuana a “gateway”, because only at letter C are you talking about “illegal” drugs.

And the idea that legalizing weed leads to legalizing Ecstasy, opium, and cocaine is some stunning reefer madness.  I’m wondering if the author opposed moving extra-strength Tylenol or Advil from prescription-only to over-the-counter, because that would lead next to over-the-counter Oxycontin and Vicodin?  Why can these prohibitionists not see shades of gray?  We let people buy aspirin at convenience stores, yet we put the Darvocet in regulated pharmacies.  Put weed in the liquor store, card people for it, and make money on the taxes.  Nothing about that move requires you to put the Ecstasy, opium, or cocaine in the liquor stores!

This logic is definitely fallible and ostentatious pontification at best; but so would any argument for the legalization of marijuana. Somewhere along the line of our history, law makers made the decision that marijuana was a substance that needed to be illegal, and that its effects would have an adverse effect on society.

Yes, and that point was the early 20th century, when the Congress was convinced by Ansligner and Hearst that the weed-smokin’ Mexicans were going to steal all our jobs, that the opium-smokin’ Chinese were going to enslave our children, and the cocaine-using Negroes were going to rape all our white women.  So despite the protests of the American Medical Association, who knew damn well that cannabis was a near-harmless medicine, Congress passed the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, effectively criminalizing cannabis.

Whichever side you stand on with this issue, I would implore you to do your research before making any predisposed judgments, about whether you would like to have marijuana legalized or not.

And that closing statement, following all the paragraphs before it, written without even a hint of irony, is just a small example of the madness of prohibition.  The author makes a bunch of predisposed judgments on the inhibition-lowering hallucinogen called marijuana that is a gateway to legalizing cocaine and then tells me to do my research.  I sure hope your senior thesis wasn’t researched as poorly as you researched this piece.