Marijuana is a Gateway Drug for Two Debates:

Basically, people use marijuana as an antidepressant and have, throughout the years, acquired an addiction to the drug, abusing it as they wish to rid of the addiction. Most of these people live in fear of what eventually the drug could do to them and try to get into programs but have difficulty in accomplishing the task.
Scientists say the drug is less harmful then most drugs and depending on the user's ways of abusing the drug, the drug could have different effects. Since other users use small amounts, lessening the potency of the drug just to satisfy a small craving.
In today's society, the drug is abused through the media, sending a different media than the government wants to send out with the influence it has on movies or music people actually watch, impressing a different image than the government wants, manipulating them into pulling the same acts.
Other than the influence of media, people use it as an emotional or mental outlet in their lives, used to
'be free' of some torture than they are under at the time. As much as the high gets you out of your state grief in life, it will put you in another that withdraws you from society and lowers you to a level that draws you towards crime or putting other people, including yourself, in danger.

Is Pot Good For You

Although in the past, ads were put up encouraging the use of marijuana, some scientists also exaggerated the negative outcomes of its use while in reality the effects were close to nothing of harmful.
Marijuana has never killed anyone since the time of its use but there have been effects that detain a person from a healthy life and may indirectly cause death. It may cause ischemia, which is an insufficient blood supply, or clog circulation in the blood, leading to amputations, this noticed in heavy drug users in France. Other than that, while high, once coordination is off balance, like drunk, causing someone to lose control while driving.

Marijuana is capable of affecting the immune system, due to a body’s receptor for cannabinoids being in the immune cells. In fact, people who smoke tobacco are more likely to suffer inflammation of the lungs then marijuana users. Also people who have known diseases or unease use marijuana to usually stimulate their appetite or ease among them to settle their discomfort.

Marijuana to be legalized

Marijuana has been a crop that's been disapproved by many nations trying to stabilize the society they are trying to fix. The use of marijuana has been abused, sending people over extremes trying to reach an alternative outlet from society when it should be used for medical reasons. From trying to prohibit cannabis, it has further increased the amount of users worldwide instead. Since this also requires the arrest of many, it has been noted that there is an ethnic display at those in possession of marijuana creating a biased with Hispanic or African American people.
Profit would decrease if marijuana were legalized, since people make much more money since it is illegal, reducing the incentive to sell at high rates and steer them into the market economy, allowing them low rates at their abundance. Also, the low rates would stem a smaller flow of money to gangs gaining from the sales, since having it illegal raises the price and thus sending billions of dollars to the gangs.

“Hemp” is a useful substance to use from Marijuana that is developed as a bio-fuel to reduce carbon emissions. In that, legalizing marijuana would issue hemp as a needed agricultural crop in the US. Canada and some of Europe have realized this action without actually legalizing marijuana.

If legalized, marijuana can be used to collect taxes helping government programs. The amount of criminals gradually going up on high rates into prison wont lower if or until marijuana is legalized. The legalization can help realize that taxes can be made from the sales of cannabis and used for the development of the country.

In my opinion, I believe that users won’t stop despite the crop being illegal, the more prisoners fitted in the prisons can only add up to more crimes or worse reputations once they are out, inflicting upon the worse they can input in society than just distributing cannabis or inhaling on their own account. Prison is bound to change any man who enters and they leave more than likely more dangerous.

 

Drugs

Drugs have caused over 1,000 deaths in just England, not counting the other countries in addition to the harmful effects. There are three types of drugs; Hallucinogens, Stimulants, and Depressants.

Depressants- consisting of alcohol, pot, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, opiates and opioids, and some solvents and inhalants- are known to cause constriction of the pupils, clammy skin, and shallow breathing. But with larger intakes of the substances it can cause vomiting, unconsciousness, and death, after losing coordination and concentration.

 Stimulants- the less harmful being ephedrine, caffeine, and nicotine; more harmful being meth, cocaine, and ecstasy- cause the user's heart rate, body pressure, and blood pressure to increase. With a large intake of the substance it can cause seizures, headaches, paranoia, and more.


Hallucinogens- being LSD, shrooms, mescaline, PCP, and cannabis- cause the pupils to dilate, a loss of appetite, increased activity, sweating, panic, euphoria, disturbance with coming to reality, or bizarre behavior. 50.

Placing in the top of 20 most harmful drugs is heroin, with the ability to be insufflated, injected, smoked, suppository, or oral (oral being the least harmful). Placed the most dangerous because of the high the user wants to reach every time, the only difference that the next high requires a higher dose of heroin.

Body Language

A. 5 examples of body language commonly seen:

1. Dragging your hand through your hair: Nervousness/Agitation
2. Biting your lip: Frustration
3. Brows drawn together: Frustration/Sadness
4. Shrug: Uncertainty
5. Eye roll: Nonchalance/Ignorance

B. 10 examples of body language culturally different:

1. East Asia- Bow- Greeting
2. France- Faire la bise- greeting
3. OK hand gesture- equivalent of the middle finger in Brazil
4. Bulgaria and Thailand nodding means no.
5. Horizontal slash with a hand= "Basta/Enough" In Spain and Italy.
6. Sign of the Horn- Buddhist and Hindu countries use to ward off evil.
7. V sign with palm turned upward= offensive in the UK.
8. Eye contact= distrust in Japan.
9. Russia- rare smiles...
10. Turkey- OK sign= homosexuality.

C. 10 examples
 of gender difference with body language.

1. Saudi Arabia- forbidden to shake a woman's hand.
2. Male- Standing with legs apart, both feet firmly on the ground- Dominance.
3. Male- clasp or rubbing his hands together- Anxiety/ self-consciousness.
4. Male- Leg over the arm of the chair- Informal aggressive attitude.
5.  Male- Body posture change and fidgeting- Anxiety
6. Male- Prolonged tilted head- Bored.
7. Female- Hugging herself- Stress.
8. Female- Leg twining/crossing legs- Shy or Timid.
9. Female- use bags to cross in front of their arms in front of them- Anxious
10. Female- Fear of confrontation (looking away, standing further away)

Fear

In gangs, fear and any sign of it is often manipulated or formed into somethign else as a defensive tactic for an individual. To start off, gangs try to use brute force and violence to scare someone. The fear drives a person, usually, into a defensive state which can either make them want to become stronger or obey to avoid getting hurt. Gangs manipulate that and the victim follows order they would not naturally do unless they are driven into a corner. This is intimidation, the feeling of overwhelming power forced upon someone else manages them like puppets into doing thing. The victims follows obediently but sometimes unwillingly. After a certain amount of time the orders are automatic, a part of their life that they can't shun out, for fear of the consequences once they disobey. Intimidation works if the victim really has no power or control over anything to give them a hold onto how they can overwhelm the other party or if the victim is themself overwhelmed by the power displayed by the gang that they feel as if they have no place to live safely.

Another way fear forms is that a victim, maybe targeted for manipulation, refuses to let themselves be overtaken and thus tries to become more powerful themselves. Also, if the victim feel fear, they might substitute that fear for anger and use it physically. In a gang, a member, or a head, identifies a threat and, through fear, they want to obliterate it. They use the anger to fuel them, or drive them into ridding the threat, usually terminal, so they don't have to face the consequences that could eventually hurt them. In the end, even if they are pushed into a corner, say by the authorities, the remain dominant in the place that they are located to establish roles. They do this so the surrounding people know that person's place and not to mess with him.

http://jcr.sagepub.com/content/38/4/620.abstract
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/ID52%20Draft%20M2.-with-tablespdf.pdf

Boys in their late childhood who have been socialized with aggression have the highest chance in engaging in homicides or assaults. Studies have found that aggression is more of a consequence than a result from the war or children observing violence at home. Delinquent and or teenage children, and within this contect there are two forms of approved violence which consist of within-family violence and non-family violence. There are gender differences and national context difference that heighten or lower the standards for violence.

By gender, males are expected to be much more violent than girl, thus the phrase "boys will be boys". Disciplinary methods taken onto boys are much more physical than one would with girls. They were expected to take on more aggressive acts in society or an aggressive behavior or nature in general.35

Every society has different methods in which to raise their child, the attitude and beliefs they have towards it influences the behavior of the child but as they develop more towards a specified goal they believe less in violence. Which is to say the amount of violence tolerated deteriorates. An example is that we don't settle interpersonal fights with duels, but rather with a higher chance of both actually suriving. This lessens the chance of children being influences by violence or their childrearing being violent.

Violence is not as expected in more developed countries than in less developed. However, there are links according to the type of violence and its link, as there is family-violence, linked to socio-economic development since its within the confimes of a home. Then there is the combination of male and sexual violence that is linked to socioeconomic development along with the growing roles of women.

Depression

Biological Effect
http://www.allaboutdepression.com/cau_02.html

• Brain Function
• Limbic System
• Affects your mood and behavior
• (body temperature, sleep, appetite, sexual drive, stress reaction, etc.)
• Neurotransmitters and Nuerons
• Affect the moods.
• Can be regulated by antidepressants increasing the amount of norepinephrine but people with depression may also have high levels of norepinephrine already.
• Hormones and Endocrine System
• Endocrine system keeps hormones from becoming too much by feedback.
• Depression makes it so that the feedback is not as productive as it should be.
• Hormone Irregularities associate with depression like sleeping or eating habits that undergo change.
• May be a symptom of disorgers in organs that produce hormones; thyroid disorders, Cushing's syndrome, and Addison's disease.
• Cortisol is the excess hormone in the blood that appears in depressed patients.
• The hypothalamus influences the pituitary to produce corticotrophic-releasing hormone, disregarding the amount of cortisol, (to depressed patients)

Environmental Causes of Depression
http://www.ehow.com/facts_5435189_environmental-causes-depression.html

• Stress Buildup
• Work, School, Bills
• Traumas
• The death of a loved one, criminal actions towards the one who is depressed.
• Childhood Abuse
• Sexual or Physical abuse
• Lack of coping skills
• Separation

Cognitive Depression
http://www.md-phc.com/puntil/ccausesof.htm

• Information is processed negatively:
• Arbitrary inference: Conclusion drawn from evidence that is irrational.
• Selective Abstraction: Focusin on the negative aspect of a situation.
• Overgeneralization: Carry rules based on experiences
• Magnification and minimization: Focus on undesirable events and disregard the desirable.
• Personalization: External events are related to oneself without evidence.
• All-or-Nothing Thinking: Black and White. No Gray.

Cognitive Triad
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=564306

The idea that everything around you and yourself, and your future is viewed in a negative manner.

• Negative Triad
• Achieved through early experience.

Self-viewed negativity- Failure
World viewed negativity- "Everyone's against me"
Future viewed negativity- Unaccomplished person