Here here, children. Come have a seat at the footstool of those far more experienced and well versed. First of all, I'm not convinced Barnicle is even close to a good ambassador for the pot movement because I know nothing of his character. However, I am impressed at his outspokenness about pot and what it has done for his digestive disease. Eventually, he may be remembered as one of "the first" athletes to come out about their pot use as it becomes more widely accepted.
For every one of you "who knows well" a deadbeat or someone "who lost their way" "BECAUSE OF POT!", there are meanwhile several people in your life who you respect, interact with daily, and even admire who are regular users of pot. And at the same time, we also are each experienced with people who become dependents of drugs, whether legal or not.
Admittedly not everyone can handle pot. I know people for whom it has proved a gateway drug and some whose mental illness and eventual suicide may correspond with their early pot use. However, I know more people who could not handle alcohol responsibly, who could not handle running responsibly, who could not handle their own sexuaal impulses responsibly, and whom had absolutely no involvement with pot.
There are no direct correlations to be made between pot use and the destruction of lives. Meanwhile, my wife began cannabis use as a means of treating chronic sciatica after years of wear and tear in athletics. I know a current 1:47 800m runner who used pot to combat depression. I myself have used pot to combat IBS with amazing success. I have smoked with police officers, politicians, my assistant coach, my boss, and most often socially with friends. Sometimes it is recreational. Sometimes it is medical. And the remainder of the time? I don't use it. I don't crave it. I don't think about it any more than I think about other drugs I have had.
Point is, pot is a drug, and like the many other legal drugs out there, it is widely used by Americans and others around the world.
MORE IMPORTANT ARGUMENT NOW:
pot is widely accessible in the US. Meanwhile the government spends hundreds of millions of dollars directly combating it each year. Why? You would imagine that pot users are destroying our country...
Making it legal, in the same way alcohol and cigarettes is legal, would serve to do one thing: TAKE IT OUT OF THE HANDS OF VIOLENT CARTELS. Legal pot would be a punishing blow to these jerks.
Why don't we want that? You and I do, actually. But because of powerful members of the federal government who receive incredible incentives to keep pot illegal, the power is retained in the hands of a few terribly violent crime syndicates.