I think that you should ask questions like these:

"Why do you think a drug should be illegal?"
(they may give answers like, it impairs your ability to work, it's dangerous to your health, it's addictive, etc)
Then you could say, well, marijuana is no more addictive and perhaps less so than alcohol. People can overdose on alcohol but not on marijuana. You know.

"Did you know that if you consumed the amount of nicotine that is in two cigarettes you would die from nicotine poisoning (the reason smokers don't die is that most of the nicotine is not inhaled and absorbed but rather burned away into the environment)?"

"Did you know that caffeine is more physically addicting than cannabis?"

From what I understand, cannabis does not impair driving ability as much as was previously assumed. Maybe you could find some facts about that.

And, I think the MOST persuasive argument for legalizing cannabis is to share the story of how cannabis became illegal in the first place. Maybe that counts as conspiracy theory, but it was actually the paper industry that was most influential in passing anti-cannabis legislation, to prevent competition from the hemp industry; the propaganda about the intoxicating effects of smoking hemp was simply a tool to convince the public to accept such ludicrous prohibitions.
TheSmokingMonkey Reviewed by TheSmokingMonkey on . attention getters (need some help please) ok, wedndesday of next week i will be presenting my persuasive speech on why the cannabis prohibition should be lifted. i have good research and i good speech outline but im having problems with my introduction. I want to really get everyones attention, so if you come up with something post it and i will definately appreciate it. the intro could be any of the following story startling statement quotation or anything else you all could think of that will really get my classmates Rating: 5