Article 1
university student age 19 cannabis user
Okay first things first, cut the crap about the news
calling weed a ‘dangerous’ drug. Today cannabis has loads of medicinal uses
such as relieving muscle spasms, helping glaucoma and appetite loss in HIV or
aids. I mean it even kills cancerous cells! People always feed me this rubbish
about how cannabis is addictive, the only time weed becomes addictive is when
people abuse the substance, I mean hey if you’re a university student like me
looking to have fun with it every now and then, this will be no problem for
you. Besides the average age for any drug user in England is 16-18, people this
age just want to experiment, nothing too serious about it.
Okay if you want to get into the politics sides of things
about legalizing weed then you should know that by legalizing weed taxes could
be reduced by £900m every year, I mean I don’t study politics but I know that’s
good. More money would even be saved as policing cannabis would be gone
approximately £400m would be saved and 10,000 new jobs would be created for
growing weed. By the looks of things there are more positives than negatives if
marijuana gets legalized.
I’m fed up of hearing all this bull shit about how
cannabis should be illegal and alcohol legal, cannabis is way safer! I mean
let’s look at the facts; alcohol causes violence and induces crime, all weed
does is make you really hungry and chilled out. I mean I’m not a scientist or
anything but cannabis sound’s way safer to me.
Legalizing dope will not encourage young people to smoke
it, in Colorado legalizing cannabis has actually lead to a drop in the number
of you people using it. I mean I’ve had tons of experience using cannabis, I
see it more as a social thing rather than just getting high. All my friends who
have used have never gotten addicted to it; I mean coffee is more addictive
than cannabis, what does that say about it?
I mean don’t get me wrong cannabis can have its issues
such as causing schizophrenia, but nothing is perfect every great thing has its
problems. But by the looks of things legalizing cannabis has more positives
than negatives, it would be stupid not to legalize it.
Article 2 Old
man age 67 non user
Recently a petition has been sent to parliament about
legalizing cannabis; over two hundred thousand people have signed this
petition. I my whole life have been against any drug use and think that all
drugs that are not used for medicinal purposes should be illegal. I have never
really understood what is so great about the drug, why not do a legal high? I’ll
never understand kids.
Cannabis is just as dangerous as alcohol, it affects your
ability to drive, it causes damage to your lungs and can affect your mental
health, can someone please tell me what is fun about it? Using cannabis for non
medicinal purposes can bring you into contact with the illegal drug trade,
making it more likely to be exposed by other drugs; cannabis is just a gateway
drug to becoming a Heroin addict.
Lets use Colorado as an example, since they have legalized marijuana 10.47% of Colorado youth ages 12 to 17 are considered marijuana users compared to the 7.55% nationally, Not only that drug-related suspension increased by 32% from the school years 2008-2009 and 2012-2013, the majority of these suspensions were marijuana violations.
The legalization on cannabis will impact the youth massively, and not in a good way. If you do not want your children to experiment with drugs then i strongly advise you to not sign this petition.
The drug laws on marijuana right now are perfect, there is no need for change. Legalizing marijuana is not the answer, it will not improve the economy, it will not reduce drug related crimes and it will not reduce the numbers of youth using it!
Bibliography
Two detailed, well-researched pieces with distinct voices. I like the semi-colon a tthe start of the older writer's piece to give that educated feel. Work on the punctuation of the rest of that piece to get that polish consistent throughout and watch out for using teen sociolect when you want to create a more mature voice e.g. the adverb in "impact the youth massively" is only used that way by younger language users: 'will have a massive impact' would be an appropriate paraphrase. I look forward to the commentary.
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