Facts

The idea I hold on the reform of marijuana laws in not nesceciarly a fact.  The notion that I believe marijuana should be legal for medicinal use in not factual because it is not believed and understood by everyone to be true.  A fact that I do pose to you is that marijuana is just as bad for the brain and organs as alcohol and tobacco.  According to the "experts", the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, "Alcohol–damaged liver cells allow excess amounts of these harmful byproducts to enter the brain, thus harming brain cells".  Marijuana harms the body as well in various other ways.  According to a scholarly article done by Janet Joy and Allison Mack, "Although free of nicotine, marijuana smoke certainly pollutes the lungs. And since tobacco smoking has been linked to respiratory injury, cancer, emphysema, heart disease, complications of pregnancy, low birth weight, and other ills, it makes sense to worry whether smoking marijuana might prove equally harmful". I know these statements to be true simply because I'm taking into consderation the experts findings on the effects of marijuana, alcohol, and tobacco.  Though its not a fact that marijuana should be legal, it is factual to believe that the legal substances alcohol and tobacco are bad for the body, as is the illegal substance marijuana.  If the effects on the body are all harmful, why not treat laws reguarding the use of these substances the same?  Or perhaps, why not make the use of tobacco and alcohol illegal as well? 

Mack, Alison; Joy, Janet. Marijuana As Medicine : The Science Beyond the Controversy.
Washington, DC, USA: National Academies Press, 2000. p 53.
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/clunet/Doc?id=10038627&ppg=53
Copyright © 2000. National Academies Press. All rights reserved.