Oh look. This thread again.
Why not just make a stoner sub-forum. (GEARS)

To me, weed makes people bigger douchebags than they already are. (>implying everyone has a level of douchebaggery) I don't trust the stuff because I believe in the studies. THC, Gateway drug etc.

If you bothered to learn why, from the VIDEO, you'd learn that the only reason it's a gateway drug is because the dealers(ILLEGAL) try to get them interested to make more money. If it was regulated like alcohol by the government, it would not be affiliated with heroin, crack, etc.

Explain it however you want bro but it's not going to change my mind.
The gateway drug part was the least of my post anyway. (derp)

Many people who smoke weed didnt start with weed. The gateway argument is dumb.

Idrank long before I smoked, and thus is the case with many people. I hate drinking because of how it effects me. weed however is the only drug that i can actually enjoy with less harmful byproducts of its use. I have not done anything else besides drinking and smoking weed...

The path to other drugs have remained and forever will be closed.

And, despite not liking to, I some times go months with out smoking. I live a perfectly normal life and don't freak out about not having any.

And if everyone has a bit of a douche-bag in them how do you know the weed amplifies that? If anything it chills people out

An alcoholic comes home and beats his wife,
a stoner comes home and thanks her for his meal.

Eh, to an extent I agree. The way people act around, because, and under even under the influence of marijuana bothers me and that's a big part of why I dont smoke anymore. Too many code words and "my phone could be tapped"s and dipshit college kids thinking they were ballers because they sold nickle bags. Don't get me started on the girls who date these kids...

Again though, most of these complaints could be fixed by making it legal. People would still get some shitbrained ideas on the stuff and feel the need to yammer in my ear for hours about them, but eh, I can live with that.

The reason legalization would help drop crime rates is because it would dissociate it from gangs, crime, harder drugs etc.
No study has ever showed that marijuana kills brain cells, it is simply propoganda, Marijuana is much less dangerous than tobacco and alcohol:
http://health.howstuffworks.com/heal...ug-ranking.htm

Oh really?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0202175105.htm

"The researchers caution that the study is preliminary and does not demonstrate that marijuana use causes the brain abnormalities."

"On average, they had smoked marijuana from age 13 till age 18 or 19, and reported smoking nearly 6 marijuana joints daily in the final year before they stopped using the drug."

"Ashtari added that the findings are preliminary. Among other limitations of the study, such as a small sample size, five of the 14 subjects with heavy cannabis use also had a history of alcohol abuse, which may have contributed an effect. Also, it is possible that the brain abnormalities may have predisposed the subjects to drug dependence, rather than drug usage causing the brain abnormalities."

Your article doesnt say anything concrete, at all. The study was done on 14 people who abused marijuana at a rate most people dont come close to (6 joints a day for at least a year? That is extreme to say the least) and the people who conducted the study even say that the marijuana users may have had the brain abnormalities before, which may have predisposed them to drug abuse. If you read the article, the people behind it say several times that it is not fact, just hunch, which are not very reliable when it comes to science.

You have to be weary of articles like this. A lot of times the source publishing them is more concerned about getting a headline people will want to look into than staying true to any sort of science. People see "marijuana abuse may kill brain cells" and they are more like to read than "a study that is imperfect in many ways and only conducted with 14 people who are probably not good representations of most groups says that smoking 6 joints a day for 365 days a year could possibly (though there is no concrete proof what so ever and this claim is all speculation at this point) lead to the deterioration of brain cells after years of smoking at this rate, and beginning at 13. All this may have a chance at being proven to kill brain cells, but more studies need to be done." It just doesnt seem interesting then. And news publications live off of interesting headlines.

I realise that the study was not concrete but it does provide at least some evidence that smoking marijuana can damage the brain.

No.
With a sample size of 14 there is no way the results can be at all valid, let alone be some evidence for it.