The Politics of Pot

In light of a recent effort made by a group of Florida citizens to collect signatures in favor of allowing a question about the legalization of medical marijuana on next years ballot,  politifact.com published an article this morning confirm truths and debunk myths about marijuana use. Politifact Florida writer Rochelle Koff uses this article as a space to fact check popular ideas surrounding marijuana, including marijuana is "less toxic" than alcohol, and one cannot get addicted to marijuana. Upon closer examination, Koff utilizes some logos to explain that there are enough statistics out there to support the notion that marijuana is indeed technically much safer than alcohol. This article does not argue for or against the legalization of marijuana in Florida, but rather does its best to be unbiased and present the facts. I can definitely appreciate the presentation of the truth over something obviously intended very persuasive in a purely informative article such as this one. Upon the completion of the article, I learned that both trips to the hospital and deaths are more likely to result from alcohol use over marijuana use, in fact, there are no documented deaths on record due to marijuana use. Koff does utilize the dreaded "one study suggests"type of reference which kind of takes away from her credibility when she claims that a study maintains marijuana is 100 less toxic than alcohol. What study and what elements of toxicity did the study measure to compare the two drugs? Koff also mentions the other side of the argument which is despite popular belief, you can actually get addicted to marijuana. Floridans are currently deciding whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, such the potential of addiction. I found a few spelling and grammatical errors in this article which also took away from the credibility for me. Over all I found to be a nice short informative piece that really should've sited more specific sources to enhance the credibility of the information being shared. 

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