an 65,000 San Francisco Bay Area members ofthe Kaiser Permanent Health Plan for an average of ten years. They found no increase in the deaths among the14,0000 patients who Said they were marijuana users between 1979 and 1987 (San Francisco Chronicle,1997). AIDS patients were the only group pot smokers found to have a higher death rate than the eithernonsmokers. But their mortality rate was virtually the same as it was for the AIDS patient who didn’t smokemarijuana. Though marijuana doesn’t cause death, it does expose smokers to a criminals and violence, by branding marijuana a crime is exposing smokers to these hazards. It also can lead to risky sexual behaviorand impair driving ability. Marijuana smokers have also been shown to make more clinic visits for coughs, colds, and flu than non-smokers.A far as life experiences go I know that I have seen allot in my 30 years of life. First of all, growing up asa teenager in the 80’s , marijuana and every other drug was readily available to me in my neighborhood. It hasbeen very clear to me that pot is the most forgiving of all the drugs out there including alcohol. I have neverseen anyone get ill from smoking marijuana, let alone overdose. .A person could probably smoke a whole bagof marijuana and all that would happen is they would get the munchies and go to sleep. I think that if thegovernment would legalize this harmless drug everyone would get along better and the government would havea new source of revenue. Also, there would be a lot less overcrowding in our jails and our policemen could beout hunting real criminals , getting off the back of people committing a victimless crime. Evidence has clearly shown that marijuana has been around for a long time and has served a multiple ofpurposes throughout history. If the government legalized it today, we would immediately see the benefits ofthis decision. People suf...
