Cannabis is not risk free, and isn’t especially medical applicable.

“Sativex can be a useful and safe option for patients with MS with moderate to severe spasticity resistant to common antispastic drugs.” [5] 

“Results from randomized, controlled trials have reported a reduction in the severity of symptoms associated with spasticity, leading to a better ability to perform daily activities and an improved perception of patients and their carers regarding functional status. These are highly encouraging findings that provide some much needed optimism for the treatment of this disabling and often painful symptom of MS.” [6]

“Numerous lines of evidence suggest that spasticity due to its complexity is not adequately managed with conventional anti-spastic therapies. Therefore, in order to improve the outcomes for the majority of MS patients, alternative approaches are needed to be discovered. Over the last years, the use of cannabinoid compounds as a potential treatment for MS-related symptoms has aroused great interest, owing to encouraging preclinical and clinical studies.” [7]

“My opponent has made something very clear to me. That is he doesn’t have any actual rebuttals to my claims. His only argument is that my title for the debate was confusing which I have already conceded.” 

“If the standard for the debate was "made the most good points without refutation" then CON would have won this debate pretty easily but it is not. PRO very wisely demonstrates that laying out definitions, burdens for proof, and wincons for a semantically focused argument can and should beat even a persuasive but undefined argument. CON should in future use that DESCRIPTION to lock in definitions, parameters, and burdens before the opponent takes that advantage away from the instigator.” 

“My opponent claims I strawman his arguments as he continues to do it to mine. For example, he claims I must prove that the risks outweigh the benefits, even though I have never even begun to claim that. Not in the description, not in the title, not anywhere in any of my arguments. That is his cheap way of trying to pin something on me that I don’t even believe or have even tried to argue.” 

R1: “Second of all, the potential risks of cannabis, valid as they are, do not outweigh the potential benefits."

R2: “My evidence is rock-solid, so as far as I see it, my opponent has two choices: argue that the risks of medical cannabis are greater than the benefits [or] show why his interpretation (that he had the responsibility of setting) is more reasonable.”  

“What I have tried to argue, and I have successfully argued, so much so that my opponent agreed with me in his first reply to my original argument, is that cannabis has risks.” 

“The other part of my argument that he seems to have trouble grasping is that cannabis is not a special drug. It has some unique aspects to its pharmacology, but every drug does.” 

“It is not a special drug in terms of its medical applicability which I don’t even feel is an arguable topic.” 

[Paragraph extolling the virtues of ketamine] 

[Paragraph extolling the virtues of ibogaine] 

[Paragraph extolling the virtues of heroine] 

“I believe I currently have proven my points and my opposition has done absolutely nothing to counter the main two points of this argument. 1: Cannabis carries  risks. He has already admitted it does. So that is a check. Just because the benefits in some cases (certainly not all) outweigh the risks, doesn’t mean the risks don’t exist. 2: Cannabis is nothing special in terms of its general medical applicability. I have proven this by taking three random drugs and listing a small amount of their medical benefits. It is just another drug. 

“I do admit my title was confusing, however that does not mean my opponent gets to make up what I was stating in the first place as he has repeatedly done.  

With all due respect – when reading through the debate, this is my impression of my opponent’s strategy:  

• Create an extremely ambiguous, poorly defined resolution with no clear scope  
  
• Admit to this, but claim it’s irrelevant 
  
• Ignore opponent’s interpretation of the resolution, as well as cross-examination  
  
• Fail to object to the interpretation of the resolution  
  
• Thereby implicitly conceding it (in formal debate, what is dropped is conceded)  
  
• Gish gallop arguments that support an already conceded resolution  
  
• PROFIT???  
  

This is my strategy:  

• Note the ambiguous resolution  
  
• Propose a clear and debatable interpretation as a working resolution (semantic Kritik)  
  
• Offer the opponent a chance to object to it  
  
• Which he fails to do  
  
• Support my interpretation of the resolution  
  
• With well-sourced, undeniable facts that my opponent even concedes  
  
• Extend my arguments while my opponent continues to dedicate 90% of his arguments to random irrelevant biochemist stuff 
  

“Kritiks are philosophically-based arguments which question fundamental assumptions underlying the arguments, positions, or presentation of one side in the debate.” [1] 

“At least three of five conditions should exist before either side introduces a kritik.” [1]

• There should be an important flaw in the topic or the opposing team's position.
  
• The judge should be receptive.
  
• The team introducing the kritik should have both the knowledge and research base to launch the attack.
  
• The attack should fit a kritik issue format noticeably better than a more traditional voting issue format.
  
• The attack should be understandable both in intent and structure. 
  

“And I’d like to apologize for being unclear as to what we are actually debating.” 

“It is not a special drug in terms of its medical applicability which I don’t even feel is an arguable topic.” 

“The kritik is generally presented as an absolute argument. It demands a yes-or-no response from the judge, rather than an impact which is weighed against other arguments.”

“Kritiks are a priori (Latin: "from the beginning") voting issues. Since they represent fundamental considerations on which presentations are built, they demand to be evaluated before substantive issues such as inherency, topicality, or disadvantages are considered. If the bedrock of those arguments is faulty, as the kritik suggests, then we can discard the arguments without looking at them in detail.” [3]

“Another round where my opponent chose to argue my choice of words and prose instead of actually combatting what I am saying. Not only does this show that he doesn’t know enough about this topic to have a true discussion. It also shows a lack of confidence in the evidence he thinks he has. He used the true/false false/false idea and claimed one of my points is false. Yet he has provided no evidence nor rebuttals to my claims. I’m not even sure he understands what my claims are. That was forgiven in the first round as I conceded my title was confusing. However, I have clearly explained what the debate is and what needs to be covered. He has yet to provide any evidence or arguments that counters my claims. He can only counter my formatting and choice of words. That type of thing simply isn’t meaningful in a scientific debate.” 

“My opponent is good at debating when score cards count. However if he was tasked with convincing a room full of people that his point is correct over mine, he would fail. Because from what I can tell he is not very educated in this topic.” 

“He says I ramble, that may be true compared to the finely laid out bullet points he presents. Is there an ounce of substance to any of his arguments? No. He is simply better at formatting and word play. I am better at presenting the evidence that is relevant to this topic.” 

“However, anyone reading this knows that is an enormous jump. It’s like when someone who loves sushi says it is “especially” good compared to other foods. Then someone says “it isn’t especially good” doesn’t mean it isn’t good at all, it’s just nothing special. I didn’t think that would be hard to understand based off of a missing ly and the end of the word.” 

“All he has to offer at this point is semantics. 0 evidence to refute my claims, 0 evidence to support his. So I will ask him a very simple question if he can answer it with sound evidence and logic I will applaud him. What makes cannabis especially useful medically compared to Ketamine, Ibogaine, or any other drug? Not in the context of “it can treat this which ibogaine can’t” but in the context of general medical applicability. What makes cannabis especially useful compared to other drugs?” 

“All of that was well written. If this is to be scored like a formal debate based off of structuring and style, he will likely win. However, if this debate is based off of evidence, which it should be, I should win.” 

“I conceded my title was poorly worded, however like I said last time he made a huge jump from what I was saying, and began arguing against it. He knew what the debate was supposed to be about two rounds ago, and had done nothing but complain about my wording since. He has provided no evidence for anything, he admitted the first half was correct, he just keeps harping on the confusion of the title that he knew the answer to in the second round. Also if he would’ve actually read my first argument this confusion wouldn’t exist. No one ever said anything about it never being applicable to anything.” 

“This type of stuff should not win debates, especially scientifically based debates: “My opponent appears to be under the false impression that semantic arguments are less valid than evidence-based arguments.” in science evidence is the only thing that truly matters. That’s what this debate is, the science of drugs in the body. Semantics have no purpose or use here. They don’t prove or disprove anything, they “undermine” supposedly, but semantics doesn't undermine evidence, positive evidence that disproves my evidence would undermine it.” 

“At the end of the day my opponent is a good debater. However he is not well versed enough in this topic, in my opinion, to prove or disprove any of the statements I've made in this argument. For that simple fact I should win the debate as it should be scored off who has more evidence, is the evidence strong, and is it applicable. I have presented strong, applicable evidence for my claims. He hasn’t provided anything but semantics and trying to “undermine” what I’m saying without actually presenting any evidence. It’s hard to undermine evidence unless you know more about the topic than my opponent does.” 

“Kritiks are a priori (Latin: "from the beginning") voting issues. Since they represent fundamental considerations on which presentations are built, they demand to be evaluated before substantive issues such as inherency, topicality, or disadvantages are considered. If the bedrock of those arguments is faulty, as the kritik suggests, then we can discard the arguments without looking at them in detail.”  (Round 4)

“This isn't a debate to be scored for debating styles, it's a scientific debate. Evidence is what should take the prize. “ 

“I have presented evidence cannabis is risky, he agreed.” 

“I have presented evidence that cannabis is nothing special compared to other drugs. Meaning it is not especially medically applicable. It is just another drug. Having evidence to support my claim should win the debate, him playing the semantics game in an evidence based debate should not win him anything. I respect his ability to debate well, but he doesn’t know anything about this topic or we’d be seeing it.” 

“My title was confusing, if he would’ve read my first argument he’d know what it was about before he ever typed a word. He didn’t read to comprehend he read only to find words to pick apart and change the debate from what I clearly stated, at the end of my first post, to something he thought he could play. That should not win debates.”