Instigator / Pro
3
1432
rating
14
debates
10.71%
won
Topic
#3374

Marijuana is not unhealthy physically past the age of full brain development.

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
9
Better sources
0
6
Better legibility
2
3
Better conduct
1
3

After 3 votes and with 18 points ahead, the winner is...

RationalMadman
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
4
Time for argument
Two days
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
21
1687
rating
555
debates
68.11%
won
Description

No information

Round 1
Pro
#1
Like always, I'll let con go first. 
Con
#2
If one smokes Marijuana there are all the harms to the lungs involved with smoking.

If one eats it, harms to the brain itself come under both physical (since the brain is the organ) and general harm. 

Liver harm isn't just an alcohol thing.

One of the earliest studies investigating the effect of cannabis on the liver was published in The Lancet in 1971; abnormal liver enzymes and hepatic dysfunction were found in young consumers who were chronic cannabis users, amplified by co-ingestion of alcohol (6). From there, knowledge in this area continued to grow. Figure 1 outlines the principal hepatic metabolism of cannabis by the cytochrome 450 (CYP450) system, a critical step followed by glucuronidation, which facilitates the final fecal and urinary excretions (7,8,9,10).

^ This is the image referred to


As for harms to the physical brain that all marijuana entails (remember, we don't know precisely what's referred to here, since variations (each with their own sets of side effects and damage to the body and brain) of cannabis/marijuana exist but at least we can rule out artificial THC as that isn't what 'marijuana' refers to. We must explore the overall effects of Cannabis to get a good estimation of what the biggest thing that ends up as 'cannabis' end up doing to you(all sorts of things pass as 'weed' you need to be careful if buying from criminal dealers).

I would also like to include the fact that psychological damages of Marijuana themselves lead to physical issues. High amounts of chronic anxiety will lead to higher blood pressure and indigestion, even puking depending on the severity, not to mention insomnia and all the physical problems that go along with that.

Even if we limit the debate to adults with fully developed brains, the damage is severe (ever wondered why people like Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa always seem so 'slow' it's not that they're 'calm' it's that it literally slows the brain down quite severely the more that you use it).

Marijuana can cloud your senses and judgment. The effects can differ depending on things like how potent your pot was, how you took it, and how much marijuana you’ve used in the past.It might:
  • Heighten your senses (colors might seem brighter and sounds might seem louder)
  • Distort your sense of time
  • Hurt your motor skills and make driving more dangerous
  • Lower your inhibitions so you may have risky sex or take other chances

These don't seem like physical problems but remember that all of these are directly going to lead to physical issues. For instance, if you are constantly overalert when having withdrawal symptoms (oh yes, you get them, they just aren't as severe as with heroin or cocaine) you end up as a hyper-alert, jittery person who cannot properly think or discipline yourself and that can lead to all kinds of accidents and problematic decisions in heats of moments that severely damage your body (plus constant increased blood pressure due to the panicking as you realise you need to panic to think and be properly understanding of your surroundings).

About 1 in 10 people who use marijuana will become addicted. That means you can’t stop using it even if it harms your relationships, job, health, or finances. The risk is greater the younger you start marijuana and the more heavily you use it. For instance, the odds of addiction are 1 in 6 if you use pot in your teens. It might be as high as 1 in 2 among those who use it every day.
You could also grow physically dependent on marijuana. Your body could go into withdrawal, leaving you irritable, restless, unable to sleep, and uninterested in eating when you don’t use it.  Learn more about how to spot the signs of marijuana addiction.

It May Impair Your Brain
Marijuana can make it harder for you to focus, learn, and remember things. This seems to be a short-term effect that lasts for 24 hours or longer after you stop smoking.
But using pot heavily, especially in your teen years, may leave more permanent effects. Imaging tests with some -- but not all -- adolescents found that marijuana may physically change their brains. Specifically, they had fewer connections in parts of the brain linked to alertness, learning, and memory, and tests show lower IQ scores in some people.
Your Lungs May Hurt
Marijuana smoke can inflame and irritate your lungs. If you use it regularly, you could have the same breathing problems as someone who smokes cigarettes. That could mean ongoing cough with colored mucus. Your lungs may more easily pick up infections. That’s partly because THC seems to weaken some users’ immune systems.

Pro will be quick to point out that under this section in my source, plausible medical benefits are listed but this debate topic is not about if it can help you, it's if it is unhealthy (at all) for you if your brain is fully developed. Just as a painkiller can harm you despite being medicinal, so can marijuana it's about context (again remember there's so many variants each with differing side effects).

You May Feel Hungrier
Many people who use marijuana regularly notice that it boosts their appetite. They call this “the munchies.” Some research suggests that might help people with AIDScancer, or other illnesses regain weight. Scientists are studying this and whether it’s safe.

It May Harm Your Heart
Marijuana makes your heart work harder. Normally the heart beats about 50 to 70 times a minute. But that can jump to 70 to 120 beats or more per minute for 3 hours after the effects kick in. The added strain plus tar and other chemicals in pot may raise your chance of heart attack or stroke. The danger is even bigger if you’re older or if you already have heart problems.

It Intensifies Alcohol’s Dangers
More than 1 in 10 drinkers say they have used marijuana in the past year. Combining alcohol and marjuana at the same time roughly doubled the odds of drunk driving or legal, professional, or personal problems compared to drinking alone.
Your Newborn Might Be Underweight
Mothers who smoke pot while pregnant face a higher risk of giving birth to underweight or premature babies. But researchers don’t know enough to say if those infants are more likely to grow up to struggle in school, use drugs, or have other problems in life.

Physical health risks
Smoking cannabis can;
  • make you wheeze and out of breath
  • make you cough uncomfortably or painfully
  • make your asthma worse if you have it
There's been less research on it but smoking cannabis is likely to have many of the long term physical health risk as smoking tobacco (even if you don't mix the cannabis with tobacco). So smoking cannabis can also;
  • increase the risk of lung cancer
  • increase your heart rate and affect your blood pressure, which makes it particularly harmful for people with heart disease
  • reduce your sperm count if you're male, affecting your ability to have children
  • suppress your ovulation if you’re female, affecting your ability to have children
  • increase the risk of your baby being born smaller than expected if you smoke it while pregnant
Mental health risks
Using cannabis can:
  • affect your motivation to do things
  • impair your memory so you can’t remember things or learn new information
  • give you mood swings
  • disturb your sleep and make you depressed
  • make you anxious, panicky, or even aggressive
  • make you see or hear things that aren’t there (known as hallucinating or tripping)
  • cause hours (or days) of anxiety, paranoia and hallucinations, which only settle down if the person stops taking it – and sometimes don’t settle down at all
  • cause a serious relapse for people with psychotic illnesses like schizophrenia
  • increase your chances of developing illnesses like schizophrenia, especially if you have a family background of mental illness and you start smoking in your teenage years
What is cannabis cut with?
Lots of things. Dealers cut hash with similar-looking substances or heavy materials to increase the weight of the drug and make a bigger profit.
Although not all cannabis is cut, it’s very hard to know when it is or isn’t – so you could be smoking, eating or vaping chemicals from all sorts of unknown substances, including pesticides used when growing the cannabis.
Tobacco is often mixed with cannabis, for making joints or smoking bongs. If you mix cannabis with tobacco you’ll be taking on the same risks you get from smoking tobacco.
These are: addiction to nicotine (the drug in tobacco), coughs, chest infections and in the longer-term, cancer and heart disease.

Remember, 'mental health' is not completely separated from physical health since firstly the brain is an organ and secondly many mental health problems manifest as physiological issues attached to them (insomnia and even oversleeping are issues that directly have physical impact for instance).
Round 2
Pro
#3
Forfeited
Con
#4
brrap brrap some da mariwaaanaa 'ave yaself a good time mandem know! 
mellow wid de 'erb you be stumblin' on yer word got ya body all hurt, dat's why ya bamboclaat self cannot show?
Round 3
Pro
#5
I'm not fighting this c+p 18 paragraph essay... I don't got time for that. 
Con
#6
That is what weed does to you, it kills your motivation.
Round 4
Pro
#7
Forfeited
Con
#8
Defeat has found its way to you. Embrace it and learn.