All drugs should be legalized.

There are many arguments for both sides, let's hope we have an interesting and engaging debate. I'll begin with a bit of topic analysis: The resolution is as follows "All drugs should be legalized. " This means we're not only debating the legalization of Marijuana or Shrooms, but also the legalization of hard drugs that cause real psychological, physiological, and neurological damage, like Heroin and Crack Cocaine. Let's go through his arguments, point by point. "1. They can be taxed, more income that people would be happy to pay. " What makes you think that there wouldn't be a black market for drugs, even if they were legalized? There is a very lucrative black market for guns, it wouldn't be any different for drugs. Furthermore, what you're in essence saying is that it is good for the government to make money off of depraved and deranged addicts who will do anything for another fix. "2. Many of them are harmless in the short term. " Sure, but we're debating ALL drugs, not SOME drugs or MANY drugs. Heroin is devastating from the first time it is injected or inhaled, same goes for Cocaine, Crack, and LSD. Furthermore, if the drugs are laced with other substances we can't even guarantee that an inhalation of a relatively harmless drug like Marijuana will be "harmless. " "3. We've wasted more money on the war on drugs than we would have simply TREATING addicts and ignoring casual users. " I agree with you, but this is not an argument for legalization. It is an argument that advocates for a new approach to drug crime legislation, an approach that would focus on rehabilation over retribution. "4. Most of these drugs are only psychologically addictive (Weed, Shrooms, etc) and are no more dangerous than chocolate. " Psychological addictions can be just as devastating as physical ones, first of all, and patterns of abuse can occur very easily. Secondly, while "most" might only be psychologically addictive, many others are physically addictive, and these ones are the worst ones. In a debate over the legalization of all drugs, there is no way that this is an argument for Pro. "5. There is actually little conclusive evidence supporting many of the claims made by anti-drug persons. My own father claimed marijuana causes testicular cancer (when most research has actually shown is cures cancer, or prevents it)" What? Do you have any evidence that the claims made by anti-drug advocates are false? Do you have any evidence that shows that "most research has actually shown that [marijuana] cures cancer, or prevents it"? This is a ludicrous argument, baseless at best. "6. By taking the illegality away we would destroy the underground drug markets, all of the drug related deaths around the world would CEASE to exist because drug cartels no longer have power since clean industrial production would be created. " This is false, as I demonstrated earlier when I cited the black market centered around arms smuggling. Even if drugs were legalized there would still be an underground market for them, perhaps for cheaper prices or for a way to get around government restriction. In fact, if we gave more power to "clean industrial production" you can guarantee the drugs might get even more dangerous, packed with nicotine like cigarettes are. Marijuana would become physically addictive! As can be seen, each argument my opponent gives can be neatly rebutted with an obvious and clear counter-argument. My opponent goes on to say that since we can do things like buy cigarettes and vote at 18, we should be able to get addicted to heroin and ruin our lives at 18, too. Obviously his position endorses irresponsibility and societal unrest. For these reasons I urge a Con vote.