Blog Six

In the blog I am responding to the author argues that marijuana should not be made legal. Their argument is that marijuana is addictive and leads to other harder drugs...basically saying it is a "gate way drug." While this can be true, I have to disagree with their reasoning. I don't think there is substantial enough evidence to prove the marijuana leads to other drug use. It seems to be a logical fallacy because the studies mentioned are proving their point by saying because drug users also smoke marijuana that has to mean that marijuana is what started their use of drugs. What is more likely is that those people were going to use drugs whether they started with marijuana or not. There is usually a deeper reason as to why someone uses drugs (self-medicating for one), and it isn't as flippant as being the natural consequence of marijuana use. Most of all though, the writer is assuming that the reason people want to legalize weed is because they want everyone to do drugs. The push for legalizing marijuana has to do more with the blatant racism engrained in the laws and indeed the war on drugs itself. Black men and women make up 3/4 of the prison population for non-violent drugs offenses and yet white people use drugs just as much (if not more). Drug laws in short are a means to oppress black people and that is why marijuana use should be legal.